


The Seed and the Root

by the1918



Series: Song of the Rolling Earth [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Plug, Anal Training, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Is 25, Butt Plugs, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Fantasizing, Farmer Steve Rogers, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Frottage, Guilt, Hyperspermia, Identity Porn, Large Cock, M/M, Modern Bucky Barnes, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Resolved Sexual Tension, Retired Steve Rogers, Rimming, Shower Sex, Shrunkyclunks, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Steve is 40, Twink Bucky Barnes, Virgin bucky barnes, Virginity Kink, daddy Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:27:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28775313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the1918/pseuds/the1918
Summary: His hands and mouth are gentle on the outside, but on the inside, Steve is burning up. He’s got everything he’s ever wanted on the bed and land beneath him, and now it’s so much at once that he’s afraid he’ll combust into white, nuclear light.—The AU Farmer Daddy Steve and Bucky story.part:|one|two|t h r e e|four|five|
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Song of the Rolling Earth [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050335
Comments: 573
Kudos: 641





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [ixalit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixalit) for beta and to Cera ([@ceratonia-siliqua](https://ceratonia-siliqua.tumblr.com/) or [Leopardtail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leopardtail) on Ao3) for additional sensitivity reading.

* * *

**s t e v e**

o c t o b e r 1 0, 2 0 2 5

| 248 days until harvest |

Walking the neat rows of budding green is a different experience for Steve than it was back in June, weeks after the doomed millet had been grimly drilled into the desolate, hot dirt.

First, the crops come in differing heights by design. Every other row stands proud and almost tall, while those in the rows between seem content to hug the earth close. And then the green is actually _green_ ; the scant inches of plant springing from the soil aren’t colored a sickly chartreuse, but an almost parakeet, grassy tone, as though the juvenile blades of wheat and leaves of clover are actually happy to see the sun.

The last and perhaps most important difference is Steve’s boots, because their hide is covered in mud—not dust.

For as hot and dry as the summer had been, autumn has rolled in swiftly with its mild chills and slowly changing leaves and—more significantly—a nearly regular schedule of seasonal Indiana rain. Steve knows it takes more than a few early October showers to break a drought, but for the first time since he purchased the farm, he’s allowing himself to feel optimistic.

Steve finishes his walk-around and eventually reaches the back door to the house. He turns, scanning his eyes across the field. The tree line in every which direction is dotted with early fall reds and barely-changed bits of gold, but Steve knows those same branches will be bare before this time next month, lined with crystalline frost.

He closes his eyes and imagines how this plot of land, now green and an almost healthy brown, will look covered in a blanket of white snow. Then, a memory enters the fantasy—two years of that same snow melting to reveal an endless, parched reality: wheat, frozen to death and forsaken by its own cradle in the barren ground.

Steve shivers beneath the lick of wind.

He chooses to savor the green while he has it.

—

“Is that dinner?”

Bucky raises his head at the stove, smiling when Steve enters the kitchen. For once, he doesn’t feel like a sweat-soaked mess in front of his house-mate—not that he thinks Bucky has ever minded.

Steve takes a second to look around the room. There’s an empty bag of Bucky’s own homemade pasta and what looks like lemon zest on the counter.

“Chicken Piccata,” Bucky answers, stirring something on the stove. “Had those nice lemons Cindy gave us.”

Steve nods and walks closer, peering over to see what’s in each pan. He hadn’t known that Bucky would turn out to be such an excellent cook when Steve had first insisted that he stay with him. Now, he’d hire Bucky to be his personal chef if he weren’t so busy truly excelling as Steve’s farm manager.

“Mm,” Steve hums, taking in a big whiff of the garlic-lemon aromas wafting off the stove. “I got time for a shower first? Don’t wanna see it go cold on me.”

“If you want.” Bucky looks him up and down with a smirk, landing on Steve’s face. “Though you don’t really need one.”

Steve indulges them both by holding that gaze and leaning against the countertop, silently agreeing to stay for at least another moment. He’s more than comfortable where he is.

And if he crosses his arms and subtly flexes his biceps? It isn’t the most damage he’s caused in the past month.

Bucky suddenly leans up on his toes—leans _in_ —and for one heart stopping second, Steve thinks Bucky is going to press their lips together. His candy mouth is slightly parted, breathing out, and Bucky is so much shorter than him; Steve feels the exhale against the hollow of his neck.

But Bucky doesn’t kiss him. He does something with his hand instead, touching Steve’s hair, and then he’s pulling back with a perfectly shaped, bright red leaf in his fingers.

“You had this,” he smiles, holding the bit of dried foliage out to Steve.

“Oh.”

Steve takes the offering, a crisp, orange-red piece of autumn. Their knuckles brush.

“Thanks.”

Bucky’s smile grows, and he ducks his head like he’s shy—he’s not—before returning to his task at the stove. Steve slowly walks to the sink and busies himself with washing his hands.

“That’s a sugar maple leaf, right?” Bucky asks, calling to Steve over his shoulder while he pushes something around in the pan. “I think those are the ones that turn that kind of red.”

Steve turns on the faucet and soaps up his hands and forearms.

“That’s right. Got a lot of them over in those woods north of the field.”

Bucky taps the spatula against the side of the pan, and Steve finishes washing. He dries his hands and turns, leaning back against the cabinets while he watches Bucky turn and do the very same. They face each other across the kitchen, eyes on eyes, four hands wrapped around the edges of the countertops.

“Guess the wind must have been blowing south, then,” Bucky shrugs.

It’s an honestly random thing to converse on, but Steve has learned Bucky’s ways well enough by this point to know that Bucky isn’t really interested in talking about the direction of wind. He’s just panning for a conversation that will keep Steve downstairs for another minute or two—doomed to watch Bucky purposefully bite his lip while he speaks—instead of leaving the room and taking his careful avoidance strategies with him.

He’s fishing for Steve’s time; for his attention.

 _Christ_ , if Steve doesn’t love to give it to him.

“Yeah,” he answers, as though his response on the topic is in any way important. “I guess so.”

Bucky laughs like Steve has said something funny instead of pointlessly commenting about a breeze. The sound is melodic, special, and it carries across the kitchen to ring in Steve’s ears.

“Wanna grab the butter out of the fridge for me?” Bucky asks, biting his goddamn lip like Steve feared he would and cocking his head to the side. He’s twice as close to the icebox as Steve is.

The kid is incorrigible. Steve still can’t help the knowing grin that creeps onto his face.

“Sure thing, Buck.”

Bucky releases his lip from between his teeth and looks up through his lashes at Steve as he passes. Steve dutifully grabs the butter from the refrigerator, as promised. He returns to the stove and hands it over, staring down through the inches that separate them and trying not to let his own gaze exude the heat trapped behind it.

“Here.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth crooks up. He doesn’t tear his eyes from Steve’s.

“Thanks, Steve.”

He lets Bucky have what he’s fishing for—what Steve wants to give him, what Steve shouldn’t—for just one more long, drawn-out moment.

Then he turns, finally, and he exits the kitchen.

“Going to change and shower,” Steve calls, not looking behind him. “I’ll be down in ten.”

He hears a faint humming coming from the kitchen as he disappears up the stairs.

Steve knows Bucky wants him. Steve even thinks he’s starting to know _what_ exactly Bucky wants from him.

Bucky wants Steve’s praise, for one. Bucky wants to do good things for Steve so that Steve will pull him in close, make him feel easy in his arms, maybe kiss over his eyelids while whispering adorations in his ear _—“So good, baby, so good for me.”_ He knows that Bucky wants that because Bucky has gone so far as to ask him for it. He’ll work out a test batch of his latest experimental confection and bring a little meringue cookie to Steve, and he’ll even press it to Steve’s mouth for him, and he’ll ask for—

_“Is it good? How’d I do?”_

—for Steve to give him his opinion, and Steve will have no choice but to tell Bucky the truth.

_“Mm. ‘S good, Buck. You did good.”_

Bucky wants Steve’s touch. He will sometimes ask Steve to help him work the physical therapy on his arm, and that, of course, requires Steve to get up close. Bucky will look up at him through the dark fan of lashes—purposeful, so much different than the first-ever time he’d looked at Steve that way in the emergency room where they met—and he’ll do it with so much steel gray and sin that it could never be anything other than an invitation.

_“Help me stretch, Steve?”_

But he knows Bucky wants more than simple praise and touch. He wants Steve to run the width of palms over him, to sink his teeth and claws inside. The thing about Bucky Barnes is that he yearns from the surface of his skin. Steve can feel the heat radiating from him anytime he gets close enough to brush their hands together, to touch elbows.

And of course, Steve has brought all of this upon himself.

_(“Thank you, sweetheart.”)_

It had been a slip; a word that had spent too long living on the tip of his tongue and had finally won its grand escape. Steve _should_ have immediately looked away and gone back to his busted-up tractor, but then Bucky had blushed just right, just so, and Steve had been helpless to do anything but stare as the shades of red and pink had spread over Bucky’s cheeks and filled his full lips with color.

Steve can’t give in to it; he won’t.

But _Jesus_ has Bucky been testing him, and his tests are not subtle.

There have been times when Bucky has lifted the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead, revealing that gorgeous navel, that barely-there trail of hair leading to his groin. There have been nights when Bucky has timed his evening shower just right so that Steve emerges from his own bedroom or the stairwell to find Bucky walking from his room to his bathroom wearing nothing but a thin towel around his slim waist, and he wouldn’t blush but _wave_ at Steve as though they were just two casual friends passing each other in a gym locker room. As though Bucky wasn’t one terrycloth bundle away from being bare for Steve’s gaze.

Steve wants to give into it, but he doesn’t. He _hasn’t_. He wants to grip Bucky by his narrow hips and pull him into his lap, make him straddle Steve while their cocks press together and his mouth ravishes Bucky’s peaked nipples—but he doesn’t. He wants to sweep everything off of the counters and throw Bucky down on them, to devastate the perfection of his skin with Steve’s lips and teeth, painting it red and purple—but he doesn’t. He wants to drag Bucky into the shower with him, to pin him up against the tile and show him that he really is as light as a feather to Steve, before lowering Bucky down onto his cock, kissing him under the spray, pulling whines from his throat.

But Steve doesn’t do any of that. He can’t do it, can’t give in, even though it’s everything they both want. Steve is older and Steve is supposed to be more responsible, and it’s up to him to make the right choice for the both of them. He can’t stop resisting. He can’t take what he wants, because Steve doesn’t deserve to have it, and because he’s still lying to Bucky about something as basic as who he really is day in and day out, and because—more than anything—he can’t risk making Bucky feel like he has to let Steve put his hands all over his virgin body to keep this new life he’s made for himself.

Bucky has finally found a place where he’s safe, where he can be happy, where there’s no one he has to look for over his shoulder; he’s found the same thing on Steve’s farm that Steve himself went searching for two years ago. If Steve gave in and took what he wanted, he’d be putting Bucky in a position where he feels he has to be the subject of Steve’s affection in order to keep that security—which Steve would never dream of taking away. Bucky could reject Steve outright, and the first thing Steve would do is explain to him that the situation isn’t changing, not unless Bucky wants it to, because he will always have a job with Steve, a roof.

And that roof will be Steve’s roof, for as long as Bucky wants it protecting him from the new rain.

—

Steve showers quickly and efficiently. He doesn’t linger beneath the spray to pull himself off while imagining Bucky’s bottom lip caught between Steve’s own teeth. He does his washing and he towels off, and then he puts on more comfortable evening clothes once he’s clean and dry.

Dinner is exactly as delicious as it had looked and smelled. Steve tells Bucky as much, and of course, he blushes, and the worst part is that Steve knows that the pinks and reds that so often frequent Bucky’s cheeks aren’t a part of his act. His attempts.

But the way he lightly touches his socked foot against the back of Steve’s calf certainly is.

No—Steve won’t stop resisting. Steve won’t give in to the desire to ask for something that will fuck up the good things they already have and give Steve something he doesn’t deserve.

But he’s growing afraid that Bucky will.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**b u c k y**

o c t o b e r 1 9, 2 0 2 5

| 239 days until harvest |

Making a move on Steve would be the stupidest thing Bucky has ever done.

It would be a dumbass thing to pull for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Steve is Bucky’s landlord and _employer_ ; his benefactor. Steve could reject him—for any number of reasons—and it would bring unfathomable awkwardness at work and at home, or Steve could even kick him out. Even though Bucky is nearly positive that Steve would never actually put him on the streets, it _is_ possible, and Bucky would really be an absolute idiot for even risking it.

…But Steve is still walking around staring at Bucky like he wants to have him for dinner, and Bucky is beginning to feel like the riskiest kind of idiot alive.

Ever since the day that Bucky got his splint off and Steve—accidentally or not—let that little pet name slip in the barn, Bucky has been… testing theories. He’s been putting himself and his body in certain situations around Steve just to gauge how Steve reacts. He’ll twist himself into a position that he knows will let his shirt ride up, or he’ll make sure Steve sees him bending over in his tightest pair of blue jeans. Steve—for all that he can be as stealthy as a ninja when he really wants to—doesn’t seem to be looking away particularly quickly when Bucky catches him staring. In fact, Bucky’s starting to think that Steve is _letting_ himself be caught with his eyes on Bucky’s skin, Steve’s own lips parted and wet, legs spread wide on the couch as he watches Bucky bend himself over in front of the television to fiddle with the antennae.

He doesn’t look away, no. But Bucky still sees the darkness of guilt trailing behind the darkness of lust.

And he knows Steve will never make a move on him first—even if half of Bucky’s fantasies involve that big, burly farmer deciding he can’t take one more second of being around Bucky without throwing him to the barn floor and ravishing him. Steve is too cautious; too good. Bucky knows that Steve would almost certainly protest that he is too old for Bucky, that it’s not a good idea because he’s Bucky’s boss; those, and a million other rational things Steve could probably come up with. But Bucky knows that Steve wants him, and if the heated looks that Steve warms him with every minute they’re together are anything to go by, Bucky is confident that Steve wants him enough for his defenses to be conquerable.

Bucky doesn’t know where he’s going to go from here. But until he’s ready to decide exactly how reckless he is, he has been building his courage by working up _plenty_ of motivation. He’s kept himself—and his pillow—busy at night, when he lies awake in bed imagining more of Steve’s voice in his ear, because he _loves_ Steve’s voice. It isn’t like chocolate or silk or any of the cliché qualities he’s always seen written in his mom’s secretly kept romance novels. Steve’s voice is just… _Steve_. Sometimes it’s rough, sometimes it’s soft. Sometimes it’s deep, fierce, but it’s always big and strong. Sometimes, Bucky might even be frightened by it if he didn’t trust Steve with his life. That voice alone could pin him to the bedsheets.

If he’s being honest with himself, Bucky has no idea where he would even begin. Maybe, in another universe, he would surprise Steve with a striptease… if he had any idea how to dance or move with the confidence of someone who knows he’s sexy. If he were ever to really go for it—to _seduce_ Steve—Bucky would have to rely on the fact that he knows Steve is attracted to his body to do all of the heavy lifting. He’d have to strut and put himself out there in a way that doesn’t make him look like the awkward, inexperienced loser that he is.

Revealing clothes, maybe? No, that wouldn’t make Steve budge. He’s yet to give into Bucky wandering the shared upstairs hallway in nothing but a towel, so Bucky doesn’t see a skimpy pair of running shorts being the straw that breaks Steve’s back.

Bucky can think and think and think on it, and every time he comes back to the inescapable truth that he’s going to have to make a move. He’s going to have to _come on_ to Steve. He’s going to have to get in his face, make that physical contact, initiate something, something more than the little touches he’s already doing. A kiss, maybe? Maybe it would have to be a kiss.

Is Steve a good kisser? Bucky thinks he must be, what with all the sex he’s apparently had. Bucky has only kissed one man before, so he’s sure he’s shit at it himself, but he hopes that wouldn’t be a deal breaker. Maybe if he kissed Steve and tried that one thing with his tongue—

“Hey, Buck—You in there?”

Steve’s voice startles Bucky out of his thoughts, and shit. How long has he been standing at the workbench staring at a blank supply order form? Is that drool coming out the side of his mouth?

And he—he _has_ been staring at the order form this whole time… right? He’s mortified at the thought that his eyes might have wandered away to where Steve has been getting himself greased up with the tractor. It’s not that he’s _above_ starting—he does it on purpose ten times a day—but he tries not to do it while leaking saliva.

He wipes the corner of his mouth on his sleeve and blinks back at Steve, who’s looking at him with an amused expression on his face.

“I—um. Yeah,” Bucky mumbles. “Can you repeat that?”

Steve laughs in that deep, scratchy way he always does. Bucky tries not to sink back into his reveries of Steve and how to get under him.

“I asked you if you were doing anything after you finish up that order,” he answers. “Was gonna see if you wanted to learn how to change the oil on the tractor.”

Steve gestures to the spot next to him in front of said tractor. Bucky pointedly ignores the fact that he hasn’t even started on that first task, because there’s no way he’s passing up another chance to work in close quarters with Steve.

He gathers his wits and tries to put on some sort of sexy face. He probably doesn’t succeed.

“Was gonna go in and finish the laundry, actually,” he sighs, trying for coquettish and pretending to be put out by Steve’s request. “But if you want me to do my _job_ instead, I guess I can pencil you in.”

Steve chuckles, rolling his eyes.

“I appreciate that, Buck.”

The big, burly farmer stops what he’s doing to retrieve one of the various step stools he’d taken it upon himself to set around the farm, should Bucky ever need to reach something at a greater height (Bucky had glared at the subtle prod at his five-six stature, but secretly, he’d found the gesture sweet). He sets the stool down in front of the open tractor hood next to where he’s been standing himself. Bucky climbs up the step before Steve can think to pat it playfully with a wink and say, _“Up, Buck.”_

“Alright,” Steve starts. “So here’s the oil reservoir. First, you wanna grab the dipstick—that’s right there.”

Steve points to a part that is completely covered in black oil. It’s gross to just _look_ at. For as good as Bucky thinks Steve knows he looks when he’s being an absolute grease monkey, even Steve has work gloves on this time.

“Got another pair of those?” Bucky asks, wiggling his clean fingers for Steve to see. “I’m just very dainty, you understand.”

Steve first makes an earnest ‘oh’ face, like he’s feeling bad for having forgotten about the gloves, but then he chuckles and takes off to the workbench to retrieve another pair. Bucky catches them when Steve tosses them over, and it doesn’t escape his notice that they’re probably the cleanest pair Steve owns.

“All yours, your highness.”

Bucky grins back and pulls them on. They slip over his fingers too easily, and the wrist guards fall about a quarter way down his forearms. They’re _huge_ on him. Bucky laughs at how silly of a look it is as he fastens the Velcro straps. He’s not sure he’ll be able to pick up something even remotely small with his hands inside these bags.

“Think we might need to pick up some my size next time we’re at the hardware store,” he giggles, and then he looks up and— _oh_.

Jesus.

The expression on Steve’s face steals Bucky’s breath.

It’s heated—scalding—as Steve’s eyes swallow up the far-too-large gloves covering Bucky’s hands. The smile is gone from his face, and his lips are parted. His eyelids look heavy.

But Bucky can’t figure it out at first. He’s been on the receiving end of plenty of looks like this one from Steve before, but that was always when he was doing something like salaciously licking the cake batter off a spoon, certainly not when he was donning ill-fitting pieces of a work uniform.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, swallowing.

His eyes are still set on Bucky’s hands, on the sight of Steve’s own gloves enveloping his fingers and knuckles and palms and dwarfing every last part and—

—and _fuck_. Everything snaps together in Bucky’s head.

Oh, Steve…

The possessive, obnoxiously hot bastard.

Steve does tear his eyes away eventually, as much as he can while still trying to direct Bucky on which parts of the engine to grab, which pieces to pull out and clean, which reservoirs to refill. Steve’s breathing seems to get heavier and heavier the more it becomes apparent that Bucky can’t actually manipulate much of anything with that much excess fabric extending out from his fingertips, so Steve has to take over after a while, but Bucky still watches. It still surprises him every day how strangely erotic he finds it when Steve gets himself a little dirty with oil and dirt and sweat and grease.

But, hey. Bucky is learning new things about himself every day.

They finish up, and Bucky takes his time shedding the oversized gloves, testing his nascent, tentative theory by making sure Steve is watching the whole time. He sets them on the countertop and lets his hands linger next to them for a moment; an opportunity for any searching pair of eyes to see and compare the sheer difference in sizing.

Bucky is chipper when he waves himself off and leaves Steve to his handful of other chores, heading inside to finish his own.

Maybe Bucky really is a stupid, risky idiot after all. Doesn’t matter.

He’s got laundry to do.

—

The upstairs hallway has never felt longer.

Bucky hangs in his own bedroom doorway, feeling like he’s standing at the first of two checkpoints on the short journey ahead. He gives one last glance back into his room to check the clock on the wall: a quarter to ten. He scans back down the hallway and spots a faint strip of light seeping through the crack beneath the door at the other end.

Steve is still awake.

Good.

It’s almost pitch-black in the hallway, so Bucky figures he might as well close his eyes as he walks its length. Somehow, it’s better that way; easier for him while he tries to breathe and calm his nerves. Bucky starts to quiet his pace to give himself more time as he gets closer and closer to his destination, but if he slows down any further, he’ll soon find himself at a stop.

Silence surrounds his body, but it doesn’t fill it, not with his heart beating to the rhythm of a cello being plucked inside his chest in a rapid staccato. His skin is warm, halfway to sweating, but the radiators in the house are shut off. There’s a tingling in his lips that he’s got no explanation for other than that his blacked-out vision has left room for his other senses to awaken—to thrum.

He does actually reach the door after what feels like a full ten minutes, even if he knows it was only ten seconds.

Bucky breathes in.

He raises his hand.

He knocks.

There’s a long silence, and at first, Bucky thinks maybe Steve didn’t hear him. His heartbeat is too loud.

Bucky is about to try again when he suddenly hears Steve’s deep voice on the other side of the door.

_“Come in.”_

He draws in another big breath, hyping himself up to be brave enough to reach down and turn the brassy knob. The hinges creak when the door slowly swings open.

Bucky has never been inside Steve’s bedroom before. It’s night outside its two farmhouse windows, and the space is illuminated only by the dim, sepia light from Steve’s bedside lamp. The décor is simple; it’s rustic but outdated, just like the rest of Steve’s house. The bed is a king mattress, larger than Bucky’s comfortable enough double, draped in a simple red quilt with coffee-colored sheets peeking out below the edges. Despite the lack of proper light for his eyes to take in more, Bucky can tell this room would feel warm even in the dead of winter.

And then there is Steve himself, reclining in the center of the sprawling bed.

His back is to the headboard, and he’s holding some sort of field guide in his big hands. He’s shirtless—of course he is—and the quilt pools just below his pecs. Bucky wonders if he’s wearing pants, even underwear, beneath the sheets. Perhaps he sleeps completely naked.

Bucky doesn’t speak. He draws in a quiet, trembling breath instead, his blood spiking with adrenaline as he takes a slow step over the threshold. An owl hoots on a branch of the tree outside Steve’s window.

Bucky’s throat bobs with a swallow—on the outside. On the inside, he’s busy willing himself to make his coming words sound as sexy and raspy and easy as possible under the weight of his nerves, just like he’d practiced.

“Hey, Steve.”

Steve lowers the book, and Bucky both sees and feels the weight of his attention.

Bucky is ready for this next part. He designed it.

He watches as Steve’s eyes crawl from his face down the length of his neck, and then over his chest, his stomach. His fire-blue gaze caresses Bucky’s thighs, his shins, every last inch of skin down to his feet. Steve is taking time to survey Bucky slowly, absorbing the look of him in nothing but his tightest black boxer briefs and a baggy white t-shirt that is far, far too big for him, nicked from a recently clean load of laundry.

The shirt isn’t actually Bucky’s, of course.

Its true owner looks like he is about to _eat_ him.

“Buck,” Steve greets, voice disappointingly steady even behind the gravel, gaze returning to study Bucky’s face. His eyes are filled with more blistering heat than Bucky has ever seen in them. “Did you need something?”

Instead of answering right away, Bucky steps further into the room. He attempts to walk smoothly and slowly as though avoiding spooking a dangerous beast, and he tries to put an attractive sway in his hips, but his muscle movements feel jerkier than he wants them to. He knows that he’s walking too much on the sides of his feet and not enough on his toes. His hands are clenching and unclenching at his sides nervously while his breaths fall out deep, too deep; wobbly.

He’s probably traveling at less than one foot per second with his right leg slinking forward and left leg catching up at equal pace—but at least he hasn’t stopped moving.

“Maybe,” he says, finally answering Steve’s question. He cocks his head to the side just like he’d practiced in the mirror, and he licks across his bottom lip. “Yes.”

It feels like he’s walking in slow motion, but the pace gives Bucky time to let own eyes wander as he gets closer. Steve’s broad shoulders and chest are bare in the soft light and partnering shadows. It's the first time Bucky has ever seen them like this with his own eyes, and he can now spot more of the detail in his lightning strike scar. The crimson red lines extend above his arm, splaying across his shoulder and over the right side of his chest, and it looks like it also spans backward behind his shoulder. The fractal shapes split into branches over and over as they grow wider, as they move upward.

It’s beautiful, really.

The staccato cello in his chest has become the pounding of drums by the time he arrives at Steve’s bedside. He brushes his shaky fingers against the patterned red quilt, not because he actually needs to feel it, but because he wants to show Steve that his fingertips know how to touch. Steve’s eyes have yet to leave him. They’re slowly growing darker, tracking him while he tries to discern what Bucky’s next move will be. Bucky wishes he knew the answer to that himself.

He’s there, at the bed, but he can’t just stand stock still and do absolutely nothing now that he’s reached his destination. Bucky makes the decision to take hold of the forward momentum he’s built, and he pulls one knee up onto the bed, careful, still slow, still not breaking the intensity of Steve’s eye contact.

Steve’s lungs look heavy but measured in their rise and fall as he observes Bucky’s movements, but when the bed frame creaks under Bucky’s added weight, something about the sound pushes the speech out of Steve’s throat.

_“Bucky.”_

It’s low, authoritative. It’s a warning of a word. It’s also more plea than threat. Bucky can feel the heat from Steve’s body already.

“Tell me to stop.”

Except Steve doesn’t.

Bucky pauses for a moment regardless, holding his position, but Steve never asks him to halt, never tells him to turn around. He doesn’t tell Bucky to leave.

And so Bucky presses on—and Bucky gets brave.

“You don’t want me to stop,” he says, voice raspy without him even having to will it so. He can feel his own lips swell with a heavy flush as he leans his weight in, both knees on the bed now, slowly starting a crawl towards Steve. “You don’t. I know you don’t.”

Steve doesn’t respond, and he doesn’t try to move away as Bucky closes in. Bucky lets his hips fall wide as he prowls, hamstrings pulling on the inside of his thighs. His backside rises visibly behind him just enough for Steve to see what’s on offer tonight.

Righting his spine to swing one leg over Steve’s warm lap feels like the biggest thing Bucky has ever done. He’s running out of room to be isolated with his body now that he’s this far into Steve’s space; he has no choice but to lean forward and rest his hands against the sturdiness of Steve’s broad shoulders, to use them as anchorage as he settles across those thick thighs.

Steve still isn’t stopping him—but he’s not touching Bucky either. His eyes and breath burn into him hotter than they ever have before. Bucky finds he has to break the gaze before it breaks him.

Blood pumping hard inside his veins, Bucky closes his eyes and finally leans in, pressing a soft, careful kiss to the bearded cut of Steve’s jawline. He’s never kissed facial hair before. It’s scratchy, rough, but there’s something about it that feels smooth and right beneath his lips. Bucky exhales and tilts his mouth, going for more, another angle.

His body is vibrating with nerves. He’s trembling more and more every second that Steve sits there below him, unresponsive. The terror somehow doesn’t stop the stirrings of Bucky’s erection inside his thin pair of boxers, and it’s that last bit that makes Bucky press his hips forward experimentally. The thick form of Steve’s halfway stiff cock is there beneath the quilt to greet him. He gasps at the not-so-subtle hint of what might be under there and at the strangled sound of Steve’s low groan.

“Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop,” he repeats, absolutely breathless now, kissing everywhere on Steve’s neck and jaw but never his lips; not yet. “I promise. Just tell me.”

Steve’s hands fly up to still Bucky’s hips, using the new grip to keep Bucky from pressing their groins together even further. Bucky surprises himself by letting loose an honest-to-God whine.

He pulls back and gives Steve a look, trying to pour everything he can into it. Bucky wants to show Steve everything: his desperation, his hopes, his pleas, his need for Steve to absolutely _have_ him. He wants Steve to look at him and see every bit of his own long-simmering desire reflected right back at him.

“Bucky,” Steve repeats.

It’s a word, but it isn’t ‘stop.’

And maybe it’s the grit in Steve’s voice, or the way his cock is clearly fattening up beneath the quilt, but something about the moment gives Bucky a sudden burst of the confidence he needs to start moving his hips again, undulating as much as he can with the now only half-hearted grip holding him. This time it does pull a sound from Steve’s chest—a _growl_.

Bucky smiles to himself, and he leans forward to whisper into Steve’s ear.

_“Please.”_

Steve’s wordless voice rumbles something void of sense in reply, and he raises his hand to cup Bucky’s face. The feeling alone is gorgeous. It’s warm. It belongs.

Bucky melts and closes his lids, rolling his head into it like a kitten being stroked, more touch starved than even he’d realized himself. He hears Steve breathe in deep as he brushes a thumb over his upper cheek in a soft, coercive gesture to get Bucky to open his eyes again. He does.

Steve turns Bucky’s face forward again until they’re looking at each other and absolutely nothing else.

“You don’t want this, sweetheart.”

Bucky doesn’t even think Steve means to let loose the endearment—it sounds like another slip—but it does something to him regardless of intention. His breath catches in his throat, and then suddenly he goes from shaky and nervous to buzzing with bravery in the span of less than a second. Something contained in that soft, sweet name gives Bucky the power to do exactly what he came here to do, and he grinds down into Steve’s lap _hard_ , and—Jesus, Bucky’s almost afraid now of what he might find down there.

Steve’s hands on Bucky’s hips tighten so much that there will surely be ten perfect bruises tomorrow. Bucky couldn’t move another muscle if he used all the strength in his body to try.

“Bucky,” Steve repeats, warning again. “You… You don’t—”

“—I _do_ want this,” Bucky pleads, leaning in again to rasp his words directly into Steve’s ear. “I’ve wanted this so bad, wanted it for months. Please.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t take his hands off of Bucky’s hip or jaw either. This space between Steve’s strong arms is limbo, a world where this next part could go any number of ways, a place that he and Steve can only depart from if Bucky takes Steve’s hand and asks him to run or if Steve pushes him out the door.

It takes two people to make the choice, but Bucky can still make a case for his preference. He darts his tongue out to trace the shell of Steve’s ear.

“Please, kiss me,” he breathes, hot and wet more real than Bucky has ever felt as he leans in hard for the kill. “… _Daddy_.”

* * *

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 at 12AM CST (6AM GMT-0) on 2/3/21.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment in the making.

* * *

**s t e v e**

o c t o b e r 1 9, 2 0 2 5

| 239 days until harvest |

Steve has been handed two options.

His first option is that he could calmly let Bucky down. He could stroke his soft cheek and explain to him that they _can’t do this_ —that Steve is too old for him, that Bucky is too young, that Steve isn’t worth what Bucky has to give. He could tell him it wouldn’t be right, and that the last thing Steve wants is for Bucky to think he owes Steve something for giving him shelter and an income. Steve could send him back down the hall while he stays behind and listens for the sound of the bedroom door closing, and then he’d jerk himself off in a quiet shame, alone in this bed in this dimly lit room.

That’s Steve’s first option. But the facts are that Bucky Barnes is straddling his lap with his full, curvy ass separated from Steve’s cock by only a quilt and tight pair of boxers, both of which are far too thin, and Bucky isn’t wearing his own shirt but Steve’s shirt— _Steve’s_ clothes, swallowing him up and making him look even smaller than he already is. Bucky looks owned inside that shirt.

But if he didn’t _look_ owned? Bucky would still sound it, and that sound would be the noise of Steve cracking down the middle, sonic waves ringing out to soak each of his fractures with need and echoes of _“Daddy.”_

Steve, if history has proven nothing else, is a selfish bastard of a man. That makes his only real option his second.

The second option involves him reveling in the burning feeling on his neck where Bucky’s lips have been kissing it. It involves a dark kind of planning, a knowledge of exactly what he’s going to do to Bucky the minute Bucky asks for it, the minute Bucky agrees; the minute Steve relinquishes the last of this wretched control that has so long suffocated the life out of him.

He knows he’s been much too silent thus far, but it’s only because he’s been focused on thinking instead of breathing, and because drawing in air singes his lungs like Bucky’s very presence has made the room catch fire.

Steve’s decision has been made for him. It’s the wrong decision—the worst decision—but it’s the only one Steve ever wants to make now that it’s in front of him, ready for him.

He tightens his grip around Bucky’s hips enough to make it clear he has no plans to let go. He’ll let go when Bucky asks him to, or when Steve is next dead.

“You need me to be your Daddy, sweetheart?”

Steve phrases it as a question, but it’s really him attending to a priority: making sure Bucky knows he did good with the risk he’s taken—that he _is_ good—and that Steve wants to be Bucky’s _Daddy_ just as much as Bucky wants to be Steve’s boy. More, even.

Too much.

“ _Yes_ ,” Bucky gasps, voice full of surprise and desire and sheer, raw need as he squirms in Steve’s lap. _“Need you,_ Daddy.”

Steve growls at Bucky’s second use of that name—not any name, but his name, that’s _Steve’s_ name that Bucky is gasping into this dark—and he takes one side of Bucky’s jaw gently in hand.

“Sweetheart,” he repeats inside of a breath, tasting the name, letting it be born into existence as it’s finally allowed to roll off his tongue with all the intended weight and meaning behind it.

Steve’s mouth trails wet and hot up the tender side of Bucky’s neck because he suddenly can’t keep his lips off Bucky’s skin any more than he can keep his mouth shut, and _God_ , Bucky tastes every bit as heady and saccharine as Steve always knew he would. 

“Bucky, baby. You’re such a little thing.” Steve runs his hands up and down the narrowness of Bucky’s body and takes his earlobe into his mouth, soaking up the gasp he gets for it. “Such a sweet thing.”

His new lover—his _boy_ —whimpers above him, unable to produce any other response at this heavy point in the night. Steve can’t help but grin into his neck and let himself feel like the big, bad wolf.

“That’s what you need, sweetheart?” His hand crawls upwards to splay fingers over Bucky’s throat, no pressure; just a raw demonstration of fresh possession, even when it’s unearned. “You need to be Daddy’s sweet boy?”

Bucky whimpers, nodding furiously, and he tries to smash their mouths together. Steve halts him with a hand on the back of his neck.

Before—in Steve’s more nasty fantasies—he might have imagined getting a little rough with Bucky. He might have imagined being a tad mean _,_ if his dreamt-up incarnation of Bucky seemed like he would be into it. But now, this beautiful, precious man has actually crawled into Steve’s lap, and he’s trembling with emotion and shaking with arousal, all fluttering heartbeats and bright gray eyes, and despite Bucky’s obvious nerves and complete inexperience, he’s worked up the courage to call Steve ‘ _Daddy_.’

Anything from ‘before’ flies straight out the window.

The smooth skin of Bucky’s waist scalds Steve’s hands as they slide up under the t-shirt. It could be just enough to make Steve say ‘fuck it’ and leap forward into that oblivion already, not sparing a look behind, but he won’t. He’s going to hold on to that slippery edge for just one more moment, because he has to, because he owes it to Bucky. Steve needs Bucky to know exactly what he’s asking for. He needs to know that Bucky can handle everything Steve is going to ask of him—of his body, his mind, of everything that Bucky is.

“I won’t take this lightly,” Steve says. “If we do this, it’s going to be me taking you _apart.”_ He presses a thumb into the handsome dimple of Bucky’s chin, and he looks him in his wide, pretty eyes so he knows Steve is serious. “I won’t do this for just tonight. And you’ll be mine. No one else will have you while you’re letting me have you. I need you to tell me you’re ready for that.”

He moves his hand, stroking up and down the angle of Bucky’s jawline. His boy keens, shivering inside his skin at Steve’s tone and implication, and he throws his lips forward again. Steve stops him short of a kiss, but Bucky still begs into a cloud of their shared warm breath.

“Yes, _yes_ , nobody else. Just you. I’m ready for you, _please_ ,” and Steve, God save him, knows Bucky still doesn’t understand the full weight of what he’s asking for, but, “Please, Steve— _Daddy_ —Kiss me, please just kiss me.”

And Steve would be wasting the last of his worth to either accept or deny such a request, but he knows which wasteland he’s going to pick.

The crack down the middle of his resolve reaches its apex. Steve feels himself finally crumbling beneath the weight of wanting what he can’t ever have— _shouldn’t_ ever have—and now he’s all in.

In a single, fluid motion Steve has practiced in his dreams, he returns both hands to Bucky’s hips and flips them over on the bed. Bucky lands softly on his back with a half-yelp of a sound, and Steve makes good to keep most of his weight off that small, eager body, inserting his bulk between the spread of Bucky’s legs. The ruby quilt twists around with them and keeps Steve covered from the navel down.

He has maybe seventy pounds and more than eight inches of pure muscle on Bucky, but the young man doesn’t seem afraid when Steve cages him in against the sheets. Steve wraps one tight arm around his waist with a guttural sound, pulling him close, and he places the palm of his free hand against the back of Bucky’s head.

“You need to hold onto me,” he promises, and then pulls their mouths together just as Bucky had begged.

He makes sure their first kiss is deep and tender and sweet like Bucky deserves, but it’s also nothing less than exacting; commanding. Bucky whimpers when Steve nips at his wet bottom lip, and he opens his mouth for a tongue so Steve can _take_ —and Christ, does Steve take.

Bucky has never been with a man; not really. If Steve is going to do this with Bucky (going to do this _to_ Bucky, and Bucky wants to let him) then he’s going to do it exactly right. If Steve is going to be so selfish as to take something Bucky can’t ever get back, then Steve is going to make this goddamn perfect for him. He's going to give Bucky everything he’s ever wanted.

And if Bucky wants _Daddy,_ then that’s exactly who’s going to show up for him.

“Daddy,” Bucky gasps when Steve breaks the kiss.

“That’s right, baby boy,” Steve growls. “Tell me who I am.” He threads his fingers through Bucky’s hair at the crown of his head, bringing his knuckles together to make it a small, harmless tug. “Tell me who gets to touch you.”

Bucky moans, deep, and he gasps that impossible name again as he attempts to push his hips up into Steve’s, searching, trying so hard to press their cocks together. He whines in disappointment when all he finds is the bunched fabric of the quilt.

 _“Daddy,”_ Bucky repeats like he just can’t stop saying it. “‘S you, just you. Want _you_.”

His pout under Steve's mouth is wet and helpless. Steve hears himself chuckling darkly, and he nips at the skin beneath that gorgeous jaw.

“That so? You think you want Daddy’s cock?”

Steve takes a pinch of the skin at Bucky’s jugular between his teeth and presses down hard enough to leave something new and crimson behind; a gift for the future version of himself to admire in the morning.

“Yes— _yes_.”

“I don’t know,” Steve mutters across Bucky’s jawline. “That’s going to be a lot for you. You sure about that?”

He has to pull his head away to avoid smashing skulls when Bucky begins nodding, because it’s quick and it’s furious and he might be close to weeping.

“ _Please_ ,” Bucky begs. “I _want_ it, I’m so ready.”

Steve can’t help himself from rolling his hips downwards through the fabric, absorbing the sharp hue of need coloring Bucky’s voice.

“Okay, sweetheart. Stay right where you are.”

It almost hurts to peel away, to separate their bodies now that they’ve finally brought them so close, but it’s what Steve has to do to provide Bucky with what he’s beautifully begging to have. He takes a moment to shed Bucky of his shirt—of _Steve’s_ shirt.

He gets his knees beneath him and holds the bunching of the quilt around his hips, and Steve only lets it go once he’s in front of Bucky—above Bucky, between Bucky’s legs—kneeling upright before him. He drops the fabric, and suddenly he wishes the lamplight were dimmer for Bucky’s sake. He watches Bucky’s eyes go wide, _wide_ , his jaw dropping open to suck in a strong gasp of breath.

Steve knows he’s large—exceptionally so, especially after Erskine’s work on him. Even if Steve hadn’t been told as much two or three dozen times, he’s seen just as many other men’s cocks in his lifetime, and he would know where he stands through the sheer power of comparison. He’s found it to be a curse more than a blessing, but he’s never been above playing it up for a lover’s pleasure, including this sweet, young man spread out before him.

“What is it, baby?” Steve coos. He grabs hold of his own thick cock—it’s shining at the tip—and shows Bucky how even _his_ long fingers hardly meet in a complete circle. He gives himself one long, smooth stroke. “Did you not think your Daddy would be big?”

Bucky swallows and nods frantically. A new surge of electricity shoots down to Steve’s balls at the sight of his boy simultaneously attempting to squirm away and wriggle closer.

“Yes, _yes_ ,” Bucky gasps, trying to fill up his lungs. “But, I—How?”

“‘How,’ what?” Steve raises his eyebrows as though he doesn’t understand exactly what Bucky is asking. He lets his heavy cock go and listens to it smack against his own thigh before bouncing up again. His hands return to Bucky’s hip bones. “How’s this big thing gonna fit inside you, you mean?”

Bucky’s whine is nearly animal, and he starts trying to thrust upwards like Steve is somehow going to let his bones go and allow him to move without guidance. He nods with one big, anxious gulp.

“Oh, Bucky,” Steve croons, condescending and as endlessly loving as he can make it sound. He leans back down onto his elbows and rubs his nose against the hollow of Bucky’s throat, breathing in his natural musk and the scent of fresh soap. “Sweetheart… I know what a man’s body can do, big or small. And that means I know what Daddy’s body can do to yours.” He nips, leaving a second bruise on the opposite side of his first. “Don’t worry. I’m going to teach you how to let me inside you.”

His cock feels heavenly tucked into the joining of Bucky’s clothed thigh and hip. Steve’s hands wander down to the waistband of the boxers, and he kisses Bucky softly on the mouth as he slips his fingers inside. He knows he’s a bad man.

“Can I take these off you?” he asks, exhaling against Bucky’s cheek. “Can I see my boy’s beautiful body?”

Steve can hear and see and feel Bucky’s inevitable anxiety about the request, but he can also feel the way Bucky’s hips try to thrust up again. He’s excited; needy. Bucky nods again, chin bumping against Steve’s shoulder.

“Words, sweetheart.”

“Yes,” Bucky whimpers. “ _Yes_.”

Steve hums his approval and presses another kiss to Bucky’s lips, slipping him the reward of tongue this time. It’s hot and wet, but it’s also gratitude for being gifted something so important; so precious.

As a kindness to soothe his nerves, Steve doesn’t stop kissing Bucky as he slides down his underwear, guiding Bucky’s legs out of them. He only pulls himself back to take everything in once Bucky is completely naked and Steve can feel his cock bare and hard between their stomachs.

“Oh, Buck.” Steve allows the unabated admiration and desire to seep from his pores, saturating the air around them, no longer caring this isn’t a sight that he could ever deserve to see. “Look at you. _Look_ at my sweet boy.”

He might be speaking more to himself than to Bucky, because Steve truthfully cannot peel his eyes away. Bucky is resplendent, like the beams from the sun and every other star. His complexion has that light olive tone all over, creamy, and Steve wants to run his tongue across every inch of it.

Bucky’s bones look young, certainly, but nothing about his body is juvenile; a sprinkling of soft-looking hair covers his lightly defined pectorals and healthy thighs, coarser where it dusts around his navel and trails down to his hard dick—and _fuck_ , his dick. It’s perfect and cut, unlike Steve’s, and it’s just on the right side of large. The bead of moisture at the tip grows larger the longer Steve stares.

“I… Steve…”

Steve’s head snaps up, and he realizes his mistake. He’s been lost in his thoughts and lust, leaving too much space between their skin and too much time for his baby to feel increasingly vulnerable. Bucky is blushing from his cheeks to his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve whispers in apology, closing the gaps between them. He swallows Bucky’s sweet moan when their cocks finally rub together, and then he pulls his lips away. “You’re just too beautiful. Daddy could look at you all night long.”

Steve makes quick work of discarding the bulk of the quilt still tangled amongst their limbs. His mouth travels down to Bucky’s chin, then his neck, and then his collarbones and chest. He stops at the round, tan circles of Bucky’s tight nipples. His sweetheart’s hands feel almost small where they’re threaded through Steve’s hair.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Bucky swears.

Steve nips at the underside of his pec in an empty form of punishment for the dirty language, but they both know Steve loves it. He moves his mouth to worship Bucky’s other nipple, trying to make it as good as he can for Bucky’s first time with a man’s lips on his chest.

“Gonna make you feel so good, baby.” Steve runs his hand down Bucky’s abdomen and wraps it around his leaking dick, pulling a shocked, helpless noise from Bucky’s lungs. “That’s it. Just lay back and feel me.”

He gives Bucky a few strokes before lining their cocks up together, taking them both in one hand. Bucky’s not small—no less than average, bigger perhaps—but _fuck_ , the disparity in their sizes knocks the breath from his rib cage.

Steve gives them one long, slow pull in tandem, getting them wet and measuring the length of Bucky’s dick with the distance of his movement, emphasizing how the place where he stops at Bucky’s cockhead is hardly halfway up Steve’s shaft. Bucky whimpers and squirms, trying to find something to do with all of the new, heated energy in his veins.

Steve knows already that Bucky will come from just this; the feeling, the sight.

“You like that?” He leaves some space between their bodies and cups his other hand around the back of Bucky’s head, a possessive and intimate hold that keeps his neck tilting downward, staring. Awed. “Got such a perfect dick, honey. Perfect handful for me. You like the way Daddy’s cock makes yours look sweet and small?”

Steve releases his head, grabbing one of Bucky’s hands from its tangle in Steve’s hair and bringing it down to their joined shafts, showing Bucky how Daddy wants him to wrap around the other side and close the circle with his fingers.

“There you go.” He re-wraps his own hand, so Bucky’s is between Steve’s palm and their blood-hot cocks. “Hold us there. Help Daddy make us feel good.”

Bucky’s eyes are fixated on the erotic picture of the sight before him. He immediately tries to pump their fists, but Steve stops him. The halting earns him a distressed whine and a pitiful squeeze.

“No, no baby,” Steve corrects. “Just hold us. Daddy will do all the work.”

Then, instead of guiding their hands to stroke them off together or encouraging Bucky to do the same, Steve starts moving his hips. Bucky’s breath hitches in realization of what Steve is doing.

“Oh my God,” Bucky gasps, throwing his head back against the pillow.

Steve starts small; just little thrusts to let Bucky feel the wet friction. His grip has become more slippery already with the way Bucky’s dick is leaking, the clear fluid sliding down their joined shafts and hands. Steve’s cock isn’t faring much drier.

He isn’t really fucking Bucky—except he is, but it’s different, and it’s slow. It’s a tease. Steve is just showing his boy what Daddy’s hips can do to him and getting him used to Steve’s cock.

“Feels nice?” he asks, lips and teeth slick on Bucky’s neck, and then his chin, and then finally licking into his mouth. “Does that feel good for my sweet boy?”

“Oh—my, fu— _Daddy!”_

Steve can see how overwhelmed Bucky feels with the new sensation. He’s tucking his head and pressing his face into the front of Steve’s shoulder, mouthing wildly and aimlessly over places on his skin that would be visibly streaked with red under better light. Steve has to remind himself before the guilt sets in that Bucky has asked about that particular mark, and Steve has never lied.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, picking up the pace. “So good for me. So good.”

Bucky is getting close already. Steve has to exercise every ounce of bodily control he’s ever held over himself not to go there alongside him, focusing on tipping Bucky over that edge instead. His hands and mouth are gentle on the outside, but on the inside, Steve is burning up. He’s got everything he’s ever wanted on the bed and land beneath him, and now it’s so much at once that he’s afraid he’ll combust into white, nuclear light.

“I want to get inside you, sweetheart. Would you let me?” Steve runs the backs of his knuckles along the sharp angles of Bucky’s jaw. “Would you let me do that?”

Bucky’s answer is a high-pitched, keening sound and a desperate but beautiful nod, a raspy, “ _Please_.” He shakes, and Steve knows it’s not born of fear but anticipation and the aching, throbbing excitement coursing through him right now.

“We’ll need to stretch you out, first,” he tells Bucky. “Daddy’s a lot for such a sweet boy to take.”

Bucky doesn’t last long after that, not once Steve starts twisting their hands around their joined, slick dicks, stroking in time with his thrusts, and not when he’s whispering into Bucky’s ear, _“There you go, angel, let it go, let Daddy have it.”_ Bucky is nothing less than stunning when he wets up both their stomachs and cocks with the force of his release.

Steve slows the movement of his hips and lets go of his own heavy dick, stroking Bucky through his orgasm until he’s panting and trembling at the overstimulation.

His own cock throbs, but he ignores it. He doesn’t need it.

“Good _boy_ ,” he praises, petting Bucky’s soft hair. “So sweet for me, baby. You’re perfect.”

Bucky is gorgeous and sweaty beneath him, overwhelmed with the aftershocks of his pleasure. Steve notes with significant interest that his youthful, energetic cock hasn’t fallen completely flaccid.

“Look at that,” Steve murmurs, running a single finger down the length of him, softly, just enough to earn a reaction. “Daddy’s so proud of you, sweetheart.”

Bucky sucks in a breath and lets it out on a whimper as Steve continues to touch him where he’s sensitive. Then, like a perfect miracle that Steve has never sought nor deserved, Bucky reacts to the increasingly downward wandering of Steve’s hand by simply spreading his legs.

“Oh, sweet _thing_ ,” Steve groans. “You really lettin’ me have all this?”

Steve runs a hand up the expanse of Bucky’s inner thighs. He gently coaxes Bucky’s legs further open, letting loose a pleased, purring noise at how well Bucky acquiesces to the physical demand.

“Yes, Daddy. Please. Want you.” Bucky’s chest is still heaving, flushed all over. He bites his lip for Steve to see. “Want you… Want you to get me ready.”

Steve growls out his agreement. He moves Bucky around on the bed how he wants him, a pillow under his hips for Steve’s easy access, and Bucky… Bucky just _lets_ him.

“Tell me, sweetheart,” he says. “You ever taken a cock before?”

He already knows the answer to that question, but the searing implication of that thought alone—that the first one inside Bucky is going to be Steve, _Daddy_ —brings Steve to a sharp edge that makes him want to bare his teeth and bite down like a beast.

And it’s a question Bucky apparently loves to hear. He whines, grappling at Steve’s body, searching for purchase for his fingers.

“No, Daddy,” he answers, breathy. “‘S just for you. _Please,_ ” and Steve hears those frenzied words and those needy groans, and he grinds his own aching cock down into Bucky’s burgeoning new erection, hard again with the stamina of his age.

Steve feels like his fingers are ten matchsticks striking against Bucky’s skin, lighting Steve up while he strokes his hands down Bucky’s body to cup his plump ass in both big palms. He gives Bucky a sweet, tender kiss when he drags a slow fingertip over the dry, puckered skin he finds nestled in the middle. Steve swallows Bucky’s shocked gasp.

“Ever toyed with yourself down here?” Steve asks.

Bucky blushes as his first answer, and then he shakes his head.

“Not really, just… just fingers,” he says, and then quickly keens when Steve’s fingertips further dip into his crease to really press against the clench of his hole, dry but light, just feeling. _“I—!_ I… just tried it with t-two...”

Steve’s groan is loud in his own ears. He knows in the back of his head that Bucky’s inexperience is going to make what lies ahead a lot more difficult. But—just for now, with the promise of Bucky’s virgin ass so close to being tight around his fingers, so tantalizing that it almost alarms Steve with its delectable appeal—Steve is going to carry them forward. He’s going to see where they end up tonight, together.

“ _Fuck_. Such a good boy, saving all this for me.” He takes a hard, wet kiss from Bucky’s lips. “You stay right here while Daddy gets the slick for us.”

Bucky nods and blinks blearily. He looks like his head is probably so full of endorphins and buzzing that he only halfway notices Steve moving away for all of five seconds to reach into his bedside drawer. He doesn’t seem to register the soft snick of the cap of the lube or the slight squelching noise of Steve getting four fingers wet, but that might be because Steve is still cooing in his ear, _“thank you, sweetheart, I love that you’re giving this to me.”_

Steve’s choice of words—his purposeful implication that Bucky’s body is an object he could somehow gift to Steve, could gift to _Daddy_ for Daddy’s pleasure, something his Daddy could _take_ —seems to be enough to make Bucky absolutely lose it to the good feelings inside him. He thrashes and whines beneath Steve, dick hard as a rock already.

“Yours, Daddy, _please_ , want you to have it so much— _oh!”_

Steve steadies Bucky as much as he can before gingerly pressing one fingertip to that tense ring of muscle between his legs, and then the energy in the room evolves so fast it seems to take them both by surprise. Bucky lets out an almost inhuman whine and tries to push himself down on Steve’s finger like he’s waited for this all his life and would die if he has to wait one second more.

“No, no, shush, baby.” Steve strokes down Bucky’s flank with the hand that isn’t wet between his legs. He lightens the touch of his finger, but now he uses it to rub slow, slick circles into the clenching flesh. “Slow down, let Daddy—”

A gasp of pain meets Steve’s ears when Bucky suddenly uses his whole strength to spear himself down over the thick caress of his finger, pulling in to the first knuckle before Steve can catch him.

Bucky is hot and now wet inside and far, far too tight, and Steve’s eyes go wide as he uses his free hand to pin down Bucky’s hip and immobilize him. He tries not to think about the fact that this same hand could shatter Bucky’s entire pelvis if it sought to, or the fact that Bucky knows nothing of that at all.

“Buck,” Steve warns, infusing every bit of authority he can into his voice. “That’s not the way this is going to go.”

But Bucky doesn’t seem to hear him. He struggles uselessly against the hold and tries to get more of Steve inside of him despite his obvious pain, but Steve pulls his finger out, returning to a light massage outside his hole instead.

“ _Listen_ to me, Bucky,” Steve commands. “You need to listen when I speak.”

Bucky picks up on the warning tone and finally begins to calm himself. It’s slow, but eventually he gets there. Steve keeps his finger right where it is as he tries to relax the muscle, not yet penetrating again.

“You’re going to let _me_ decide what your body can handle. You tell me if you want to stop, and I will. But you push yourself further than I think you can take it, and I _will_ stop. For both of us.”

Bucky’s lips form a perfect, shapely pout, but he nods. Steve holds them both still and easy while he waits for Bucky to catch his breath, to listen and process the words and the rules and bring himself back to a manageable place.

“Good boy,” Steve praises once Bucky’s breathing is almost even. “You ready to try this again?”

Bucky nods, quiet, and his lips search for Steve’s. Steve gives him the kiss he needs so badly while he increases the pressure of his finger, allowing it to slip past the initial resistance again when Steve’s tongue against his own relaxes him.

It goes steady and a little easier for a while after that. Steve stops any time he tenses up or gets too excited and showers him with affirmations, with care, with _“let Daddy take care of you”_ and _“easy, baby, let Daddy in,”_ until he can finally work his finger a little bit deeper.

Bucky is breathtaking on his back with his eyes closed, Steve’s hard, hot cock pressed against the inside of his thigh and dwarfing him, a thick finger buried nearly all the way in his ass.

The process is work, and it’s slow, but it’s crucial. Bucky is far less patient. It seems to Steve like he loves the feeling so much that he can’t help tightening up, trying to draw Steve in further, to get more and more and more until it starts to hurt. Steve stops his movements each and every time it happens and kisses Bucky, encouraging him to relax and let it happen, to give his control to Daddy and to _“trust Daddy with your body, sweetheart. I know the best way to get inside it.”_

But it happens again—and again. Soon Steve can tell Bucky isn’t just feeling the burn of being stretched, but also the burn of frustration, and Bucky is angry at himself for not getting loose faster. He becomes huffy and weepy the fourth time Steve stops, finger almost to the last knuckle but not quite there. He’s a clenching vice around him.

“Sweet boy,” Steve sighs. “This isn’t going to work if you keep—”

—But Bucky ignores the end of Steve’s sentence and suddenly goes for broke, shouting when he sinks all the way over Steve’s finger. It isn’t a pleasured sound.

“I— _ah!_ ”

Every protective bone in Steve’s body rages against himself for allowing Bucky to experience harm at Steve’s hand— _on_ Steve’s hand. He groans as he pulls his finger out slowly, regretting the necessity of it even as he does it.

Bucky’s whine is absolutely heart-wrenching. He starts up a plea that Steve desperately wants to give into, but limits himself to cupping Bucky’s jaw with his clean hand and shushing him, cooing gently. He asks him to quiet and take deep, calming breaths as much as he can.

“Sweetheart, sweetheart,” Steve says. “Listen. I need you to calm down and listen to me. Can you do that?”

Bucky’s frustration is so tangible, but Steve can tell he wants to obey more than he wants anything else. He wants to calm himself and do whatever his Daddy asks so he can finally get something inside him.

“Good. That’s good, honey.”

He frames Bucky’s face in his palm and looks him in the eye. He tells him to breathe, and breathe, and breathe again, and they do that together until the rise and fall of Bucky’s chest is almost even with Steve’s.

“Listen, baby,” Steve repeats, regret lacing his tone already. “Daddy’s not going to fuck you tonight.”

Bucky’s answering wail is pure heartbreak and despair.

 _“No!_ Steve! You can’t—you can’t stop now—”

Steve interrupts Bucky with a gentle kiss to his lips, then one to the tip of his nose. He brushes the hair from Bucky’s wrinkling forehead.

“Not stopping. Not stopping, baby, I promise. We can keep going. I wanna make you feel good. We just can’t go that far.” Steve can hear the lamentation in his own tone. His cock is painfully hard. “Not tonight.”

“Why?” Bucky asks, salt in his eyes. “Do… Do you not—”

“Oh, _sweetheart_ ,” Steve growls, sympathetic hands cradling Bucky’s face. “I want nothing more than to get inside you. And I will, I promise you, as long as you still want it. It just can’t happen right now.”

“But, I _do_ want it,” Bucky argues, pouting, eyebrows drawn together over big, wide eyes. “Why not right now—”

“—Shush for a minute, sweetheart. Can you keep quiet while Daddy talks?”

Bucky gives him a look that says he’s not really sure if he can but promises to try. It’s enough for Steve.

“Good boy.” Steve gives him a warm, tender kiss on the sweet plushness of his lips. “You’ve been so perfect for me tonight, and _God_ , you are breathtaking, sweetheart. I don’t think I’ve ever been more attracted to somebody in my life.” He brushes his knuckles over Bucky’s forehead and smiles into his skin, letting Bucky feel the pleased expression stretch across his face where his mouth is pressed against Bucky’s cheek. “But Daddy’s gonna have your first time, right? And you’re really worked up, and you’re… God, I can’t believe I’m saying this.” Steve stops, laughing to himself. “You’re _too_ tight right now. It’ll hurt you, no matter what Daddy does to make it better.”

Bucky’s disappointed whine is accompanied by an out-of-place blush— _oh_ , he likes hearing that Daddy thinks he’s tight—and the faint sounds of autumn raindrops beginning to fall against the window panes.

“But I can… You know… _stretch?”_ Bucky asks, adorable and perfect, blush intensifying. “Right?”

Steve can’t help the fond smile that grows on his features. He’s disbelieving of his own good fortune at first, until he remembers it isn’t fortune at all, but something Steve has stumbled upon and decided to take for himself. He pushes away the thought for now and moves the hand that’s still slick and hovering between Bucky’s legs back up to his barely open hole, stroking at it just enough to pull a pleasured reaction from the beautiful man beneath him.

“Yeah, yeah, of course you can, honey,” Steve promises. “I told you I was gonna teach you how to take me, and that’s exactly what I’ll do. And I still wanna keep playing with this pretty behind, if you’ll let me.” He pulls the finger away and gives Bucky’s ass a squeeze, chuckling at the enthusiastic fit of nodding he gets for it. “Alright, then that’s what I’ll do. But anything past that would be just… just too much. For your first time.”

Bucky still looks disappointed, but Steve can see his heartbreak fading and making space for something like interest.

“Could we… Could we do it next time?” he asks, eyes big and gray and wide.

“Maybe, yeah,” Steve answers. “But we don’t want to rush it. I want to make sure you’re ready for me when it happens. I want to make sure you love it just as much as I do.”

The sincerity of Steve’s sentiment seems to melt Bucky a little. He tilts his head for a kiss, which Steve doesn’t hesitate for one second to provide.

“Do you want me to tell you what we’re going to do together? To get you ready?” Steve asks, a husk of breath pressed into Bucky’s lips. “What I’m going to do with you after tonight?”

Bucky moans and pushes down against Steve’s slow finger as it begins to truly slip back into his hole, but it’s not the demanding, frenzied pushing it was before. He’s feeling good; now, he’s also being gentle with himself. Steve’s chest hurts with the strength of his pride.

 _“Yes,”_ Bucky sighs, letting his eyes slide shut as he gives in to the feeling and just lets it all happen. “Please.”

Steve smiles down and gives Bucky another kiss, this time more demanding but no less sweet. Their lips meeting again feels like warm honey, and it tastes like too many feelings, too soon, but Steve treasures it regardless. He eases that finger back inside as promised, just centimeters at a time but without stopping, and he listens to Bucky sigh out his contentedness.

“You never played with toys before, sweetheart?” Steve asks, leaving Bucky’s mouth to lave his tongue up the side of that sweet-tasting neck, already knowing the answer.

Bucky—of course—blushes, and Steve knows it because he can feel it.

“No,” he answers. “Just… Just the fingers. Mostly one. I tried two, um… a few times.”

Steve hums into the curve of Bucky’s sweat-slick collarbone and allows himself the fantasy in his head; Bucky lying in bed, trying his level best to stuff two of his thin fingers deep inside himself, failing when his little hole squeezes them out.

“Ever seen an anal plug?”

Steve lifts up to look for Bucky’s reply and finds pink flame licking the skin of his cheeks. He wants to feel it sizzle beneath his tongue.

“On—Only in porn,” Bucky answers—and shit, there’s a whole new image to fill in the dark, guilty crevices of Steve’s mind: Bucky Barnes, an inexperienced but curious kind of perfection, touching his own cock to the sights on his computer screen.

Steve finally gets his finger all the way into Bucky after the distraction of their filthy conversation allows him a way inside. Bucky moans out brilliantly and pushes onto it, but it’s sweet this time, and he’s even getting a tiny bit loose as he searches madly to figure out what other new things his muscles and flesh can do. Steve plans on showing him.

“They come in— _fuck_ —all kinds of sizes and types, and they’re very nice for…” Steve groans at the pictures developing in his head, rolling his hipbone into Bucky’s thigh. He thinks of the box in the back of his closet, of his favorites, of the littler things that have never even been opened. “…For training.”

Bucky makes a hiccupping sound beneath him. Steve thrusts his finger out and then back in again, still going slow, still not yet curling his knuckles but just letting Bucky get used to the sensations and the stretch.

“Tomorrow morning,” he breathes, “I’m going to wake up early and get some work done outside while you’re still asleep in my bed, and then when I’m done, I’m gonna need a shower. I think I’ll have you join me.”

Bucky cries out in bliss when the tip of Steve’s second finger begins toying with his rim.

 _“Yes,_ please Daddy—More?”

“Mm,” Steve hums, giving Bucky what he wants because it actually does feel like he’s ready for it. “And we’ll wash each other, and then I’m going to turn you around and get down on my knees. And you know what, baby?” He mouths hotly over the lines of Bucky’s shoulder while he starts to work himself in. “I’m going to eat _out_ this tiny, little hole.”

He bites down on Bucky’s collarbone at the exact moment Bucky lets out a shattering moan at the feeling of two fingers penetrating him. His ass tightens up, and for a moment Steve thinks he’s going to have to roll things back again and let Bucky calm down, but then he feels the want and the pulsating and the sheer joy emanating off of Bucky as he learns what it’s like to have pressure on his prostate. Steve wasn’t even trying for that; Bucky’s hole is so small, and Steve’s fingers are thick.

“Oh, baby…” Steve grins ear-to-ear. “Did you know you had a sweet spot?”

Steve doesn’t wait for Bucky’s answer. He’s got a new kind of energy and need thrumming through his veins now, reaching through his fingers and toes and his hard, pulsing cock, and he needs to do something with it.

He pulls back without pulling out and rearranges Bucky’s limbs however he likes—and again, Bucky just _lets_ him, like he’s a puppet happy to hang on Steve’s strings. He takes one of Bucky’s legs and slings the calf over his shoulder to open him up more, to give Steve more room to work and more skin to press his own dick into. Once he’s happy with the new spread of Bucky’s hips, Steve takes both of Bucky’s wrists in one hand, pinning them above his head. He kisses up the healed line of surgical scars along his left forearm.

Bucky couldn’t protest Steve’s free and fluid manipulation of his body even if it looked like he wanted to; he’s too busy trying to gnaw a hole through his lip, squeezing his eyes shut against the pleasure so tightly that not a single ray of light could possibly get through. Steve uses his own mouth to loosen up that lip and suck it between his own, and he pushes his fingers in slowly before dragging them back out.

“Feel this?” Steve asks, and he curls his fingers upwards. Bucky’s back arches so much that Steve has to use his own hips to hold Bucky’s to the bed so he doesn’t hurt himself. “Yeah, _yeah_ … You like having Daddy’s fingers inside you?”

The answer he gets is a wild moaning and gasping, muscles attempting again to do something like thrash under this brand new fit of pleasure, but they can’t, they can’t, not when Steve is pressing each inch of their bodies so close together.

“Yes, _yes_.”

Steve grins against Bucky's sweaty skin on the side of Bucky’s face. He licks the shell of his ear and whispers out filthy thing after filthy thing just to see how Bucky responds.

“I’m glad you like it. Because while I’m fucking you with my tongue in that shower”—Bucky gasps again—“I’m also gonna finger you open. Gonna get you feeling sweet and relaxed for your Daddy.”

Steve absorbs the sounds of keening and moaning as Bucky sinks deep under the heavy sensations, the praise and the promises, the care, the feeling of having something to squeeze down on inside him. Steve never thought he’d get to have this, and he knows he shouldn’t, but he has it here and he has it now and he’s going to pull as many of those sounds out of Bucky as he can find with two hands and one mouth.

“And then I’m gonna lay you down on my bed,” he continues. “Get my gorgeous boy all happy and comfortable on his belly. And I’m going to take the very smallest plug I have, and I’m going to work it inside you.” Steve stops to nip playfully at the shell of Bucky’s ear. “Think I might fuck you with it just a little bit, too. Just to see how you look taking it.”

He raises up on his elbow to get a peek down at where their flesh meets, but what he finds first is Bucky staring up at him through tears of pleasure, his watery gray eyes full of dark lust, sparkling, mouth caught open in the middle of a silent moan.

“An-And then when I’m…” Bucky hiccups, biting his red fucking lip and taking a breath as Steve uncurls his fingers. “Then—wh-when I’m open enough—that’s when you’ll fuck me?”

Steve leans his face in close, feeling the thigh over his shoulder stretch with him, and he gives Bucky a gentle, sweet kiss. It’s so soft a feeling, so night and day from the raging arousal dancing beneath Steve’s skin, so different from his body’s responses to Bucky’s eagerness to get his Daddy in him.

“Not just yet, sweetheart,” he answers, being preemptive and ready to kiss away Bucky’s whimper of disappointment. “You’ll need to learn to take a much bigger toy before that happens. But I’ll tell you what...” Steve smiles as he twists his fingers, pressing up while barely tugging them down against the firmness of Bucky’s rim for the pleasure of dual sensations. “Once you got that plug all nice and snug up inside you, I’ll let you get your pretty mouth on my cock.”

Bucky hears Steve’s words and moans and shakes and then Steve’s patience runs _out_ ; he can’t hold off any longer. He gets back on his heels to watch what he’s doing, to watch the sight of his own fingers disappearing inside Bucky. It means he has to let go of Bucky’s wrists—and God _bless_ , his boy doesn’t even move them from above his head—so he uses his newly freed hand to give his own aching shaft a few tugs.

“What else, Daddy?”

The trembling, breathless voice breaks Steve from a trance and makes him realize his mind has been wandering. He’s stripping his own cock slowly while staring at Bucky’s lines and shapes and curves, and his fingers are just barely massaging Bucky’s insides, keeping him open and stimulated.

“What’s that, baby?”

“What else are you going to do to me before you fuck me?”

And _fuck_ , his sweetheart has a dirty little mouth.

Steve makes himself refocus. He relinquishes his grip on his dick and strokes Bucky’s instead with his sweat-slick palm, and his own dripping cockhead falls down heavy against Bucky’s thigh. It’s a potent reminder of the very thing Bucky is asking Steve to stuff him full of.

“I think we’ll need to train your little body up to take my length, too.” He ruts forward enough to let his cock slide through the junction of Bucky’s leg and hip, just a tease, slow so Bucky can really feel how long it takes him to get from the base to the tip. “Daddy’s big, baby boy,” Steve smirks, scissoring his fingers inside Bucky as much as the tight space allows. “And it’s not all about me being so thick. When I fuck you, it’s gonna be hard and _deep_. And since you haven’t played with yourself before, all that pressure inside might get uncomfortable. So Daddy’s gonna get you a nice toy for us to play with.”

Bucky is good and listens as Steve speaks, and his answering pleasured sounds are exactly as tight as the clench of his insides around Steve’s two fingers.

“A d—um, a dildo?”

“Mhm,” Steve hums. “Or a vibrator. Maybe even one with a prostate massager.” He presses his thumb into the skin below Bucky’s balls, and he gets a yelp for it. “Oh, now _there’s_ an idea.”

Steve talks and talks and talks, rubbing at Bucky’s responsive sweet spot with those two fingers until Bucky’s back is arching and the clench on Steve’s fingers is almost unbearably tight for them both. He hears and feels it all, and then Steve leans back down while holding Bucky’s dick tighter, stroking him. He bites down on one collarbone hard enough to leave his mark before rasping out more filth into Bucky’s bruised skin.

“And then, once I think this hole is good and ready to take my cock,” and Steve has to pause at Bucky’s wet gasp, at the trip of breath on the bed beneath him, at Bucky’s fingers grabbing at him just to hold on. “That—That’s when I’ll pick my baby up and take him to bed, and I’ll lay you down, strip you down, show just how much this little body can feel.” Steve shoves his face into the sweaty crook of Bucky’s neck, growling the rest into his ear. “I’ll suck on this pretty cock in my hand, and I’ll eat your sweet little ass out ‘til you’re dripping for me. I’ll make you come first on four of Daddy’s fingers while I stretch you open, get you ready to take me, and—I know, sweetheart, I _know_. It looks so big. You might think it’s never gonna fit in this tiny little hole we got right here.”

Steve crooks his fingers harder and strokes Bucky faster, trying now to push him over the edge for the second time that night. He can feel Bucky beginning to pulse around him.

“But we’ll make it fit, I promise. And oh—baby boy—when I get inside you?” Steve kisses him wet on the mouth and times his pulls with thrusting fingers. “Daddy’s gonna have you shaking on his cock ‘til dawn.”

Bucky comes so hard his screams stop working halfway through it.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. 
> 
> Seems like these two have something to talk about in the morning. And it sounds like _Steve_ has some promises to follow through on...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky wakes up in Steve's room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New tags (again).

* * *

**b u c k y**

o c t o b e r 2 0, 2 0 2 5

| 238 days until harvest |

It’s the sound of a shower running that wakes Bucky up.

He blinks his eyes open slowly. He finds he’s looking right at the clock on the nightstand, and it’s—oh. That’s _Steve’s_ clock.

That’s Steve’s clock and it’s on _Steve’s_ nightstand, because Bucky is waking up in _Steve’s_ bedroom, not his own. The old school, circular alarm reads nine-thirty in the morning—far later than Bucky usually sleeps.

The big bed is empty except for him, which Bucky knows because he turns and looks. It’s at that exact same time that he notices a barely-there twinge in his ass, and it’s… discomfort, maybe? It’s not pain. It’s not anything bad.

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

Bucky twists his neck to search for the source of the deeply voiced greeting, and he finds Steve leaning against the doorway to the ensuite bathroom. He’s still half-dressed from his morning farm work; his blue jeans are dirty like he was just outside, but he’s not wearing a shirt. He didn’t bother to put it back on this time.

Steve isn’t trying to hide his skin from Bucky anymore.

The hair on his broad chest is just as thick as it had been in front of Bucky’s face last night, except now it is lightly matted with sweat. Bucky can see more of him than he ever could before with the morning light filtering into the room through the curtains, and he can’t help but absently lick his lips as he takes in the sight of the hair trailing down from between Steve’s pecs to his navel, surrounding it, before continuing on and disappearing below his waistband. Bucky could probably do laundry using nothing but water and soap and the diamond cut of Steve’s abs.

Bucky realizes he’s gawking—oh, and Steve is _eating_ that up, if the knowing grin on his face is anything to go by—at about the same time he realizes his own body is naked beneath the red quilt. He can still hear the shower running.

Steve’s gaze is fond and relaxed. Bucky looks him down again, and then up, and he registers how… _different_ this Steve is. He’s still got that serious, brooding energy about him—something that feels almost dark at times, in a very Steve Grant kind of way—but now that energy seems lighter.

He seems _happy_. There’s a small tilt to the edge of his lips.

Bucky can’t help but smile back.

“Good morning…” he says, and then considers the next part of his greeting. “…Daddy.”

Steve’s eyes flutter, and that big chest practically heaves when he draws in one long, deep breath. His bearded grin grows while he seems to try and get a hold of himself, and something about that reaction makes Bucky feel… wanted. Powerful, even.

Steve pushes off the doorway—Christ, how does he manage to make everything look so sexy?—and walks to the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. His eyes crawl down the line of Bucky’s mostly covered, sideways-laying form. He reaches a hand out, resting it atop the quilt over Bucky’s top thigh.

Steve doesn’t move or do anything else with the hand at first. He looks at Bucky’s face instead, right in his eyes. He’s asking for permission.

Bucky smiles timidly. He nods.

Steve grins at him. He proceeds to run his hand up and down Bucky’s side, petting him through the quilt.

“Water’s warm,” he says, nodding in the direction of the bathroom. “Are you still up for joining me?”

A memory returns to Bucky at Steve’s question; a promise from the night before.

_“Tomorrow morning, I’m going to wake up early and get some work done out in the barn while you’re still asleep, and then when I’m done, I’m gonna need a shower. I think I’ll have you join me.”_

Bucky blushes, but he nods, slow but sure like he’s moving his head inside of a dream. He wants to shower with Steve.

He peels back the quilt without thinking much of it at first, and then he’s surprised to find he doesn’t really care that Steve is now looking at his naked body in the daylight for the first time. He’s exposed; Steve can see every hair, muscle—or absence thereof—and every curve or bit of chub he’s acquired since begging for food on small-town streets became a thing of the past. Steve can even see his mostly flaccid dick between his legs.

Bucky thinks he should be feeling insecure, but Steve’s eyes are bold and appreciative on his skin and it just feels… natural. He thinks that it’s supposed to feel this way.

He swings his legs over the edge of the mattress, and then Steve surprises him before his feet can even touch the floor by sweeping him up in his arms. Bucky lets out a shocked yelp first, and then he laughs as Steve carries him bridal-style in his arms, beaming down at him, kissing the tip of his nose.

Steve sets him down on his feet in front of a large tub, kissing Bucky on the forehead with a murmured, “Just one second, sweetheart,” before shedding himself of his own jeans and underwear.

The peachy floral shower curtain—something straight out of a different century—opens to reveal the spray of water and a modest collection of shower products on a shelf. Steve asks him to stick his hand in and check that the temperature is okay, and it is. It’s perfect.

Steve is so much larger than him. Bucky has never felt that difference more than he does right now; standing next to him in the shower with Steve a full head taller, looking down with intensity and something more affectionate.

Everything about Steve’s body is imposing; broad. It’s the most unreal thing Bucky has ever seen inside human skin. The power he seeps isn’t only from his muscles or his brawn or even his great height, but from the depth of his blue eyes, which seem to change with the color of the sky overhead. It’s in the way Steve gives off an energy that feels older than his forty years and ageless at the same time. It’s in the scars on his arm, the lines that say he took the weight of a lightning bolt inside him and lived to tell the tale. Everything about Steve’s body looks like it could break him.

Bucky’s eyes glide lower.

Yeah… everything.

Steve’s cock is long, sure; easily eight or nine inches of flesh, but it’s the _girth_ that makes Bucky’s heart beat like a hummingbird’s. That thing can’t be half an inch shy of the width of a Coke can. It’s barely hard right now, even when it’s long and heavy-looking, but Bucky remembers the night before when it had been red and hot with that dark purple vein pulsing, the tip sweating pre-come. Steve has a nest of dark blond fur down there, and while it looks like he must manscape a little around his balls, he otherwise seems to go all natural. He’s also got an alluring bit of foreskin, something Bucky has never before seen outside of porn.

Bucky isn’t even that horny when they climb into the shower, but it’s all he can do to peel his eyes away from Steve’s body to lean up for a kiss.

It’s so simple and easy how one of Steve’s arms remains circled around him while the other hand explores, soaped-up and sudsy, touching Bucky’s skin like it’s already familiar. Bucky is amazed that it doesn’t even really feel sexual, even though they’re both half hard now just from lazy kissing. He knows he probably has morning breath. Steve doesn’t seem to care.

The soap bar smells like lemon and rosemary, and it looks like Steve probably bought it at a crafts shop. Bucky lets himself enjoy the feeling of Steve washing him, even his more intimate body parts, before Steve lets him take the washrag so Bucky can wash him in return. Steve stands there while Bucky takes his time, looking down at Bucky’s face with interest and maybe a blooming feeling of lust while Bucky runs the sudsy terry cloth all over Steve’s wet, hard body. Sweat and the slightest bit of mud from Steve’s work outside swirl with shower water and dance down into the drain.

Once the suds are gone from their bodies and hair, Bucky opens his eyes and finds Steve still staring down at him with that same intense, affectionate gaze. There’s desire there, too, as well as something deep and piercing. A drop of water hangs from his bottom lip, so Bucky strains his neck up to kiss it away.

Steve sighs into his mouth with a long, drawn-out exhale before he’s suddenly moving, hands on Bucky’s hips to direct his body where to go until Bucky is pinned to the shower wall and he’s being kissed senseless, quiet intimacy turning into rumbling thirst. The tile against his back is cool on his skin, making him gasp, but Steve swallows up the sound before kissing down his jawline, his neck, his collarbones… and then his chest and stomach.

And he’s still going.

Bucky’s first blowjob starts off teasing and slow. He thinks that’s probably a good thing, because there’s a very real danger of him shooting off like a teenager before the first full minute is over. Steve is clearly working off years of experience with sucking cock, which makes Bucky kind of hot to think about if he’s being honest with himself. He sucks around the tip and just the upper half of the shaft for a while, tonguing around like he’s giving Bucky the lewdest French kiss.

“Mm,” Steve moans, pulling off to look up at Bucky with droplets of water hanging from his eyelashes. “You taste so good, baby boy.”

“Oh my—oh, _ah!”_

Steve swoops his head back down and takes Bucky all the way to the root—to the _back of his throat_ —before Bucky can even finish the shout. He keeps it up, switching between sucking and deep-throating and even humming on his dick to create these amazing vibrations, until Bucky gets too close.

“Turn around, baby boy.”

The breathless endearment combines with the hot mist of the shower and the lips pressed against his iliac crest to create a wave of sensation, and Bucky moans, twitching his hips and seeking release for the pent up ball of energy inside him.

_“Daddy…”_

Bucky wants with everything he has to simply obey, to turn around like Steve asked—like _Daddy_ told him to—but it’s so hard because he thinks he knows what Steve wants to do to him and the hands on his body are so warm and so strong, and it’s just… a lot.

“‘S okay, I got you,” Steve whispers as he rises up from his knees to tenderly press his lips to Bucky’s. A hand wanders down his wet skin to the curve of his bottom, tentative but still firm, still giving Bucky a chance to push it away if he wants. “I got you, and I… _fuck_ , I love it when you call me that.”

Bucky moans when Steve’s questing, gentle fingers find his hole. He can’t help but clench up like he always does when Steve touches him in that intimate place.

“Bucky… do you want my mouth on you here?”

The question shocks him even when Bucky knew it was coming. He finds himself begging suddenly, mewling _“please”_ and _“yes”_ against Steve’s mouth, enthusiastic agreement with all that Daddy could ever want to do to him. Steve grins into Bucky’s wild and sloppy kissing, pressing down just barely against the tight ring of muscle, testing and now teasing.

Daddy’s got him. Bucky is ready.

He takes a few stilling breaths while Steve holds him and touches him more, and it’s almost like he’s helping Bucky just to breathe. A shiver full of warmth runs down Bucky’s spine at the praise he gets when he finally nods and turns in Steve’s arms. His nipples react swiftly to the chilly tile pressing against them.

“Sweet _boy,”_ Steve groans. “So good for me. Just relax. Tell Daddy if you wanna stop.”

Steve kisses down his back and kneels again, this time behind him. His hands are so big and broad that he can hold the side of Bucky’s hips and pin him in-place while spreading Bucky open with his thumbs at the same time. Bucky has never felt as vulnerable as he does now with nothing but the pink tile wall in his vision while Steve sits behind him, looking his fill.

“Oh, Bucky,” he breathes through a ragged moan. “This is beautiful. Looking so sweet, so pretty when it’s wet.” He sweeps over the rim with the pad of his thumb, tugging in just the slightest bit. “‘S a little red, huh? That from last night?”

Bucky nods like it wasn’t a rhetorical question, rocking his forehead against the wall. Steve presses his thumb inward as he talks, gently testing the give.

“Goddamn, baby. So fuckin’ _tiny_ , don’t know how I ever got my fingers in here. Does it hurt when Daddy does this?”

Bucky takes a few seconds to actually consider Steve’s question and the feedback from his own body. He knows Steve wants an honest answer.

“No. It… It feels good.”

Steve hums, deep and pleased. He presses a light kiss against the swell of Bucky’s ass.

“Good. That’s how I want you to feel, sweetheart. Only good.”

Steve rubs his thumb in sensuous circles over the water-slick pucker of his rim like he’s trying to massage out the tension, and _God,_ Bucky really does want Steve’s mouth on him as soon as possible.

“Will you hand me the little jar to your right?”

It’s an odd request in the context of the anticipatory, sexy kind of moment, and it spurs a little confusion in Bucky’s head, but he looks to his right towards the small wall-mounted caddy of shower supplies and quickly spots the requested jar.

“Coconut oil,” Steve supplies as Bucky hands it down. He loosens the lid and sets it on the floor of the tub. “I use it to moisturize.”

Bucky has a lot more questions on that particular topic, but suddenly every thought he’s ever had is ripped right out of his brain by the feeling of something wet and flat and warm swiping flat over his hole and oh, _yes_ , of course—

That’s Steve’s tongue.

Bucky would be mortified by his own inhuman cry if not for the way the sound becomes veiled under Steve’s own reaction: a thunderous, broken groan, so leaden with hunger Bucky can feel his own body shaking with it.

Steve finishes out a string of filthy expletives before practically diving back in, no longer just teasing but burying his face with so much enthusiasm that it would feel like a performance—who loves eating _ass_ this much?—if it weren’t so obviously genuine. A deluge of sensation falls over Bucky in time with the beating of water. He has no choice but to drown in it.

The mouth on his hole is merciless; Steve laps and licks and kisses and sucks, trading up one action of the lips and tongue for another over and over and over like he’s searching desperately for the most perfect way to bring Bucky to pieces. The beard feels rough and just the right amount of abrasive against the sensitive skin of his ass and thighs. Bucky can hear the lewd noises Steve is making with his mouth on his hole, even above the riot of his own whines and whimpers and the sluice of water raining down on their naked skin: the slurping, the smacking sound of wet lips. The growling.

It’s not until Bucky registers how much tighter Steve’s grasp has become on his hips that he realizes his knees must have given out at some point, because Steve’s grip and the brace of Bucky’s forearms against the wall are the only things holding him up anymore. It feels almost like Steve is keeping him right where he wants him for Steve’s own purposes; keeping Bucky snug and secure between his palms while Steve attempts to consume him whole, to take. The thought alone is so blindingly erotic that Bucky has to give his hard dick a squeeze to tamper the almost painful amount of blood rushing south.

Bucky is only just starting to hear the endless string of _SteveSteveDaddySteve_ pouring from his own lips when Steve pulls his mouth back with another watery groan. He rubs his beard against Bucky’s left cheek like an animal trying to leave his mark behind, and then he bites down on the same spot, just hard enough to confuse his pleasure with the smallest bit of pain.

“Tell Daddy how it feels, sweetheart,” Steve husks before burying his face once again.

Bucky wants so badly to be good for Steve and pull together an answer, but it feels like asking for the sun to rise in the middle of the night. It takes everything Bucky has just to reply with more than another trembling whine, because the truth is that he _feels_ like his blood is made from fire and molten hot earth. He _feels_ dizzy with pleasure, ragged with need. He _feels_ wanted and—increasingly—had. He feels like the universe could split into two pieces and he would hardly even notice, because now Steve is dipping the point of his tongue into Bucky’s hole and _fucking him with it._

The response Bucky settles on is, “Love it so much, Daddy— please, _please_ don’t stop.”

Steve doubles down. He holds Bucky’s entrance spread with his thumbs and thrusts his wet tongue in over and over, and Bucky feels wrecked, and his muscles feel loose and the world might be tipping away. He thinks his brain is slowing down despite the flood of adrenaline and endorphins in his veins; it’s impossible to think about anything other than Steve’s mouth eating him out. He doesn’t even register any of Steve’s other movements until there’s the faint pressure of Steve’s index finger sneaking up alongside his tongue. It’s in that moment that Bucky realizes why Steve wanted the coconut oil, and his fucked-out mind can’t think anything but—

“Daddy!”

Bucky feels like he’s going to go insane with the need to get Steve’s fingers inside him, and he uses what very little leverage he has against the wall to try and push his ass back.

“Fuck, baby. You need Daddy’s fingers that bad?”

Maybe it’s because Bucky’s hole is already a little loose and relaxed from Steve’s tongue, or maybe it’s because Steve knows from last night that Bucky can take it, but either way, he doesn’t deny Bucky like he had before when he’d shown the same kind of eagerness to spear himself over Steve’s hand.

It feels like Bucky is going to come when Steve presses his finger in to the first knuckle. He probably _would_ come if not for the way Steve’s arm wrapped around his body is keeping Bucky’s dick pinned to his lower belly, leaking and helpless.

“Oh, Buck,” Steve croons. “Look at that. We’ve only played with you here once before, but look how good you open up.” He responds to Bucky’s desperate whining noises with a few well-directed licks around his rim, to the place where he’s slowly being pulled apart. “‘S like this sweet little body knows me already.”

Bucky has only just enough wherewithal to not try and completely shove down on Steve’s finger because he knows where that landed him last time, but it’s a close thing. He wants the whole length of it, he wants two or three or _four_ of them. He wants the huge, thick cock that he knows is hanging heavy between Steve’s legs right now, and he wants it inside of him, even though Bucky knows Steve won’t give it to him yet.

Steve pulls his finger out before working it back in slowly. He repeats the motion again and again, kissing and licking around the stretch while he goes, sinking in only a few more centimeters with each pass.

“Daddy,” he whines, trying his best to infuse enough pout into his voice that Steve will be able to hear it. “Deeper, _please_. I can take it.”

Steve groans behind him.

“Oh god, baby, I know you can. So good for me. I’m sorry, Daddy’s been playing around in you. Daddy’s been selfish.” Steve presses in deeper this time, down to the second knuckle, and he lets out a dreamy-sounding sigh. “I just love watching you. Will you clench down for me?”

Bucky obeys without hesitation, and he’s _so_ glad he does, because it feels incredible and makes whatever background amounts of discomfort that remains disappear completely. Steve sinks his finger in all the way to the final knuckle and lets a guttural, pleasured sound while it vanishes inside him.

“ _Oh_ ,” Bucky moans with a head full of bliss and an ass full of Steve’s flesh.

Steve hums and goes back to licking the tight skin hugging his finger. He mutters out little praises in between strokes, sweet endearments and things like, _“so perfect,”_ quiet, like it’s a secret shared only between them.

He pumps his finger in and out at a snail’s pace, slow and torturous, but it’s got the back of Bucky’s eyelids sparkling with the hazy gleam of glitter. He finds himself grinding down subconsciously and reveling in the way it feels to have something inside him again, buried in the most intimate part of his body. It feels so special to know that this is reserved just for Steve; just for _Daddy._

Bucky is just finding out that he can rut his hips forward and slip his hard dick into the wet crook of Steve’s elbow, getting himself some friction, when Steve suddenly curls his finger—hard.

He _screams_.

“Yeah,” Steve chuckles into his ass. “Right there?”

Steve does it again, and this time Bucky thinks the world might actually shatter. He thinks he sees a crack in the planet after all, right down the middle, between the left and right hemispheres of his brain.

“ _More_ , more, _please_ ,” and Steve is so perfect and loving and good because Steve _gives_ it to him.

Steve fucks his thick finger in and out and in and out and _in_ and he aims for that fairy dust spot every single time, pulling choked-off, pathetic noises from Bucky’s throat with each wet slide. He keeps cooing and murmuring sweet nonsense into the skin of his backside while he watches it all.

Bucky sobs when he comes. The noise trembles and shakes as it passes through the crack in the Earth, and everything else just sounds like static.

Steve is standing behind him when Bucky regains awareness, holding him, keeping him upright while planting little kisses up and down his neck.

“Taste so damn lovely, sweetheart. Thank you.” Steve turns him, pecking him on the nose as he runs the shower head over Bucky’s body once more before turning off the water. “Come, let Daddy dry you.”

Bucky follows Steve out of the shower and lets his eyes slide shut as Steve pampers him, rubbing him down with a huge, fluffy bath sheet before squeezing the water from Bucky’s hair, then finally drying himself off. He takes Bucky’s hand afterwards, guiding him back to the bedroom.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asks, sitting Bucky on the edge of the mattress and kneeling on the floor in front of him.

Bucky smiles down at him. It feels as silly and loose as the rest of his body.

“Really good,” he murmurs. He tries not to let himself blush.

“Good.” Steve pets up and down his bare arms, grinning. “Are you up for trying something else now?”

Bucky blinks and looks down at his own lap, noting that his dick is still half-hard. His eyes pass down further to between Steve’s legs where his cock is hanging huge and heavy and really, _really_ stiff—and that’s when Bucky realizes that Steve hadn’t come last night.

“Yeah,” he answers, swallowing the overflow of spit that suddenly fills his mouth. “I want, um. Anything you want, I guess.”

Steve’s eyebrows come together in front of him.

“Buck… You know that you can turn me down at any time, right?” Concern laces Steve’s tone. “You can tell me whenever you don’t want to do something, or whenever you feel like you need a pause. You can decide you don’t want to do any of this anymore, and we’ll stop. I promise nothing would change about your situation here.”

Steve’s jaw twitches when he says the last part, but Bucky knows he means it sincerely. He knows he could call this whole thing off and Steve would do his best to return things to normal. Steve wouldn’t fire Bucky, and he wouldn’t put him out of his house.

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky says. “But I want this. I want to do everything.”

Steve’s smile is big and warm as it spreads across his face. He pets the outside of Bucky’s thighs; soothing.

“I love that, sweetheart. And we can talk more about what that means for us later.” He stands, taking Bucky’s face in both hands and tilting it upwards. “But right now, I think we want to see if we can train your body up a little. Do you trust me?”

Bucky’s breath hitches. He thinks he knows what Steve means by ‘train,’ but he’s not totally sure. He _is_ sure that he trusts Steve.

“Yes.”

Steve’s smile grows, and he leans to kiss Bucky’s forehead.

“Perfect. I’m going to go find the little toy we’re going to use,” and he pauses, grinning with mirth at the blush Bucky can feel spreading across his cheeks, “and I’m going to brush my teeth. I’ll be just a minute.”

Bucky is pretty sure Steve is less concerned about morning breath than he is about kissing Bucky when he’s just had his tongue in his ass, but Bucky finds he doesn’t really care about that part. Still, he could use the opportunity to take care of his own morning hygiene.

“Okay. I’m gonna go brush mine, too.”

Steve nods, and he gives Bucky one more kiss on his nose before they part ways. Bucky heads down the hall and empties his bladder before grabbing his toothpaste and toothbrush. He brushes extra thoroughly this morning, just the same as he’d done the night before ahead of embarking on his quest—his _successful_ quest—of seducing one beefy, handsome farmer.

Bucky hears Steve still brushing up in the bathroom when he returns, and he sees a large towel spread out neatly across the center of the mattress. He approaches the bed and notes two other items next to the towel: a tube of lubricant, and a…

“…Oh.”

Transfixed, Bucky climbs onto the bed and picks up the little glass plug. It’s less than two inches long and teardrop-shaped with a flat base handle, and it’s really lovely, actually; clear with twists of royal blue. It looks a lot smaller than what Bucky thinks he’s seen in porn, but it also feels huge and heavy in his hand. He wonders how much thicker it’s going to feel than two of Steve’s fingers.

“It’s not ideal for wearing,” comes a voice from the bathroom doorway, “but it’s the smallest one I have on hand. I won’t keep it in you for too long today. Don’t worry.”

Steve joins him, and Bucky can’t help but admire his body again as he crosses the room. Bucky wants to climb him like a tree and build himself a house and stay up there forever.

“I like it,” he says, staring at the plug in his hand. “I didn’t know they came in glass. It’s pretty.”

Steve strokes his hands down Bucky’s limbs like he’s trying to get his blood flowing, and then he grazes a hand over Bucky’s quickly stiffening cock, humming low in his throat.

“I’m glad you like it,” he says. “It’s yours now. Never used, just took it out of its package. Washed it in warm water to get it nice and ready for you.” Steve gathers Bucky up in his arms like it’s nothing to manipulate his weight, and he grins into Bucky’s heated cheek. “Came in a set, but it’s just so little that I never thought to need it before.”

Bucky’s whole body flushes as he thinks about Steve keeping a large array of sex toys somewhere—under his bed, maybe, or perhaps in his closet—and then he finds himself wondering why Steve has them at all.

Does he… Does Steve use them on himself?

“Um,” he starts, kind of in shock that he’s apparently brave enough to ask Steve this question. “Have you ever, like… Have you been someone’s bottom?”

Steve pulls away from where he’s pressing kisses along Bucky’s neck and gives him an amused look.

“Honey…” he grins, teasing more than he ever has. “Are you asking me if I’ve ever taken a dick?”

Bucky’s blush is flaming hot now, cheeks and neck and chest and probably his back, too. He shrugs, trying to make it casual as if to say, ‘no big, just wondering,’ but he nods.

Steve’s grin is like the Cheshire Cat when he takes Bucky’s face in one hand and kisses him tenderly before pulling away.

“More times than I can count, sweetheart.”

And Bucky is… Bucky is _floored_.

“Really?” he asks, not even attempting to disguise his shock.

“Sure.” Steve gives him a shrug of his own. “Why does that surprise you?” He runs a hand over the curve of Bucky’s ass in his lap and gives it a playful squeeze. “ _You_ sure seemed to like having parts of me inside you.”

Bucky gestures to Steve’s body, to his muscles, to the sheer masculinity of his physical presence. He just can’t imagine Steve letting someone pin him down and fuck him—even if the mental image is really fucking hot.

“Yeah, but you’re… like…” he mumbles.

Steve laughs, and it’s maybe one of the deepest, most sincere laughs Bucky has ever heard from him. He sort of feels embarrassed to be asking these questions, but he also knows that Steve would never laugh _at_ him. It feels good to know that he can make Steve smile—in any way.

“What?” Steve grins. “Daddy can’t like to have something inside of him just because he’s a big man?”

Oh, well. When Steve puts it like _that_ …

“Sorry,” Bucky apologizes, looking away. “I guess that’s stupid of me to assume.”

Steve’s big grin melts into a softer expression; something fond. He catches Bucky’s chin in his hand and turns his face back around.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, kissing Bucky on the lips. “You could never be stupid. I do prefer to top in bed. I like the power that comes with it. But I can bottom for someone and still be the one in control.”

Bucky nods slowly. It’s a lot of information to process at once, and when he breathes in, he notices his lungs sound a little shaky.

“Does that, um.” He bites his lip as he works through the question he feels needs asking. “Does that mean you want to, like…”

Steve chuckles, but he’s still not making fun of Bucky. The gentle, happy sound does more to put Bucky at ease than it does to make his blush grow, because he actually really likes it when Steve converses with him in this voice. It’s Steve’s ‘Daddy voice,’ he’s realized, and maybe to someone else it might sound like Steve was talking to Bucky like he’s a child, but Bucky knows that’s not what it is. Steve is just good at making new things—things _Bucky_ is new to but Steve is really experienced with—feel simple and easy. Bucky doesn’t need to guess or pretend to know what he’s talking about when he’s around Steve, and Steve might chuckle, but he will never make fun of him for not knowing. It had been like that with the farming stuff before he’d climbed into Steve’s bed, and now it’s still like that. It’s really nice.

“We can talk about that on a different day, if that’s something you decide you want to try. I’m very open to it.” Steve tightens his arms and brings Bucky in closer, kissing each of his cheeks before doing the same to his nose. “Right now, I just want to think about how happy I am that I’ll get to have you like that for myself.” He brings their lips together softly, just a graze. “That I’ll get to be inside you.”

They end up kissing and making out for a while, Bucky in Steve’s lap with his hands around Steve’s neck, Steve’s hands slowly running all over Bucky’s skin; touching for the joy of finally getting to touch. But it isn’t too long before things start to heat up again, because Steve’s cock is fattening up under Bucky’s ass—and Christ, Steve _still_ hasn’t come—and Bucky’s own dick is fully awake once again.

Bucky moans into Steve’s wet mouth before pulling away.

“I’m ready, Daddy.”

Steve gets Bucky situated laying on his stomach on top of the towel, head pointed towards the footboard, before straddling the backs of his thighs. Bucky muses to himself that it’s almost like Steve is going to give him a massage, but it’s no sooner the thought occurs than Steve actually does place his hands on Bucky’s lower back, rubbing around the tension in his spine and relaxing him even more than the rim job accomplished.

“Feel okay?” Steve asks, rubbing his thumbs in little circles above Bucky’s tailbone.

“Mm…”

He continues the massage for probably another five minutes, and it’s light and dry, but it’s so sweet that Bucky doesn’t even care that his dick is hard and untouched against the towel. Every now and then Steve will bend forward to reach further up his spine, and his own huge, hard cock will brush against the crack of Bucky’s ass. Bucky gasps every time.

Eventually, Steve stops focusing on Bucky’s back muscles and shifts his attention to the little furl between his cheeks. Bucky’s breath hitches when Steve runs the pad of one finger over it, then two, catching what’s left of the coconut oil and spreading it around. It feels like he’s still loose from the shower.

“So perfect,” Steve murmurs. Bucky is surprised by how easily he opens when he starts to push. “Look at that. Still ready to take Daddy’s fingers.”

Steve pats the inside of Bucky’s thighs gently, encouraging him to spread them, and then he kneels in the open space and continues to his attentions on Bucky’s hole. He spends some time just playing with him, getting his fingers wet with new slick and continuing his ministrations from their shared shower until Bucky is maybe a little more open than he’d been when Steve last made him come. He only gets little teasing rubs on his prostate, but that’s probably a good thing considering how quickly that teasing has made him fall apart before.

“Ready?” Steve asks, a breath against the back of Bucky’s neck as he leans forward. Bucky is trapped in a cage of flesh and heat and he has never felt safer or more wanted.

He nods, cheek brushing against the towel.

“Ready.”

Bucky hears the sound of the lube cap again, and then Steve’s spreading him open with a broad palm on one cheek and there’s the feeling of something cool being pressed against his hole.

“Oh,” he gasps as Steve slowly starts to push it in. It’s hard, so different from the flesh of Steve’s fingers. “That’s…”

“Feel okay?” Steve questions.

“Yeah. Just strange.”

“Mm. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure this feels really good for you in just a minute.”

Steve doesn’t pop it in all at once like Bucky expects him to. Instead, Steve does this thing where he presses for what feels like millimeters before letting up, allowing Bucky’s body to push it out naturally before starting up again, going just the tiniest bit deeper.

Bucky is just beginning to appreciate that being stretched open can be a pleasurable sensation all on its own when Steve suddenly pulls out the plug completely and replaces it with two fingers, pressing deep, curling them downwards.

_“Fuck!”_

Stardust sparkles behind Bucky’s eyelids at the same time he hears Steve’s easy chuckle, and then Steve is doing it again, only he’s scissoring his two fingers now. He’s murmuring things—filthy things, as Steve always does—and Bucky can’t hear every word, but he hears it when Steve says he _“can’t wait to feel you come on my cock, baby boy, so_ tight _for Daddy.”_

Steve doesn’t keep up his torture for too long, but by the time he’s pulling his fingers out and pressing the tip of the plug in again, Bucky’s dick is leaking and he’s trying to rut it into the towel to get more friction—except he _can’t_. Steve’s grip on his hip is like a vise.

“Not yet, sweetheart,” Steve soothes. “If you come now, it might be uncomfortable when we push this plug all the way in you. Just hang on a little bit longer for Daddy.”

Bucky groans in frustration, but he nods, trying to lie still and focus on the feeling of Steve nudging the plug into him slowly. He can feel the moment Steve pushes it in to the widest point, and yeah, it’s wider than he’s ever been stretched, but he finds that the faint burning sensation actually feels really good.

 _“Oh my god,”_ Bucky gasps as the suction of his ass pulls the plug the rest of the way in and the base taps against the outside of his hole.

“Baby…” Steve tugs it back out a little before letting it sink in again. “You got no idea how gorgeous you look.”

It’s the strangest sensation, having something so hard to clench down on when Bucky tightens up, but _fuck_ does it feel fantastic. He loves the way it feels when his ass draws the weight of the plug in each time, or when Steve pulls it out enough that his body forces out the rest, only for Steve to press it in again.

“This little thing feel good in you?” Steve asks. “Want Daddy to fuck you with it?”

Steve’s words have Bucky squirming on his belly, trying already to do what Steve was talking about, trying to move himself back and forth over the modest length of the plug instead of waiting for his Daddy to go faster, harder.

“Yes, _please_ ,” he whines. “I want it.”

Steve kneels behind Bucky’s prone form and straddles him on his knees and elbows, pressing his forehead against Bucky’s upper back. Bucky can feel him looking down the line of his spine towards his own hand on the plug. He’s pulling and thrusting it, finally, in and out and in again.

“I’m so happy you like this,” Steve rasps into his neck, chapped lips grazing over the shell of Bucky’s ear like a promise, deep voice rumbling. “But oh, sweetheart… when Daddy’s in you, he’s gonna be _so_ much deeper.”

 _“Oh my God,_ Daddy, oh my God…”

Bucky starts grinding his rock-hard dick into the towel as soon as Steve blissfully releases his grip on Bucky’s hip bone. The friction feels good, _so_ good, and Bucky knows he’s well on his way to another orgasm. He knows that Steve knows it, too.

“You need to come again?”

Bucky’s only response is a desperate moaning noise, a plea for Steve to do something— _anything_ —to take this feeling further to its end.

“Alright. Hang on for me, sweetheart.”

He pulls out the plug, the slide now natural and easy, and then he’s pressing it back in and _down_ against Bucky’s prostate with perfect aim and flawless pressure.

 _“Daaaddy!”_ Bucky whines, like it’s the only word he knows anymore.

“Fuck, baby boy, yeah, let Daddy _—Yeah_ … There we go.”

And then Steve is shoving his other hand beneath Bucky’s hips and wrapping it around his cock, squeezing and pulling on him just right. Bucky feels like the world is ending when the plug inside him begins to press and pulse under Steve’s movements to the rhythm of his blood pumping, to the beat of the drums in his ears.

“There we go,” Steve repeats, encouraging Bucky’s pitiful noises. “C’mon. Let it go, baby boy. Show Daddy again how gorgeous you are when you come.”

And Bucky is a good boy. He listens to his Daddy.

He breaks, dick spitting white all over the towel beneath him. This one might feel even more amazing than coming with Steve’s fingers inside him, or even more perfect than his tongue, because the plug inside him is hard and solid and thick when Bucky’s ass clenches down on it, over and over, beginning to end.

“Jesus,” Steve whispers, fucking him through it. “You are a fucking _sight_ , sweetheart.”

His movements with the plug don’t stop, but they do slow down as Bucky’s orgasm starts to subside. Even once Bucky is done coming and Steve lets go of his softening, wet dick, he keeps gently thrusting the plug, slowly pulling it out halfway before letting go and allowing his hole to suck it back in before doing it all over again—all of it just to watch.

“Steve…” Bucky mumbles into the sheets, hiding his heavy blush.

“Sorry, baby. I was just playing.” Steve lets go and taps lightly on the base once it’s nestled back inside. “We’re going to leave this in you for a while, okay? Not too long, I promise. But it will help your body learn it’s okay to be stretched out.”

Bucky finds himself squeezing down on the glass still inside him, and he moans, both at the sensation and at the headiness of Steve’s filthy-sweet words.

“Okay.”

Steve stretches out next to him and moves the towel, laying on his side, and Bucky rolls off his belly to face him. He’s immediately pulled in, bodies pressing together, and his arms wrap themselves around Steve’s shoulders to bring them closer, and oh—oh _Christ_ , Bucky can hear himself whining again, but now it’s because Steve’s enormous cock is as hard as concrete and it’s pressing right into his thigh. He doesn’t even think Steve means to do it; he’s not going for anything. It’s just… there.

“Sweet boy,” Steve breathes into the top of Bucky’s head, finger lightly tracing over the glass base of the plug behind him. “That was beautiful. Thank you.”

Bucky has to laugh at that. The sound lands on Steve’s collarbone.

“You’re thanking _me?”_ he says, pulling back to look at Steve’s face. “You’re the one who’s made me come four times in the last, like, twelve hours…”

“Of course I’m thanking you,” Steve responds, like it’s easy. He frees one hand from Bucky’s waist to stroke across his cheekbone. “Bucky… What you’ve given me—last night, today—is so much more than an orgasm could mean to me.”

The sincerity in Steve’s voice is sort of overwhelming, and Bucky has to stew on those thoughts for a minute.

It hasn’t escaped his notice that Steve seems to appreciate— _like_ , even—the fact that Bucky is inexperienced with all of this, and that he wants to do these new things with Steve instead of waiting around for somebody else. Bucky doesn’t say the truth out loud: that he doesn’t know who could be better other than the man who came around a blind corner and saved his life by hitting him with his truck.

“Oh, well. Um… ” Bucky trails off as he focuses on the feeling of Steve’s hard cock against him, and he realizes he hasn’t touched Steve since last night. “Can there still be orgasms in it for you, too?”

Steve laughs while he kisses Bucky’s head, and the vibrations feel so good rumbling against his skin. It’s a joyous sound.

“Mm,” he hums, lips pressed into Bucky’s forehead. “We can do that if you want. What did you have in mind?”

Bucky’s heart starts hammering like it had right before Steve put his tongue inside him. He knows exactly what he wants to ask for, because he’s been thinking about it since the first time he saw Steve’s fat cock.

“Last night,” Bucky starts, trying not to mumble too much. “You said that after you put the plug in me, you would let—like…”

Steve pulls his head back, and he tips Bucky’s face up until their eyes meet again.

“Sweetheart,” he drawls through a knowing smile. “Do you want to put Daddy in your mouth?”

The flush spreading from Bucky’s cheeks to his neck to his chest feels so hot, so intense, and it burns him as it goes.

“Yes,” he answers quietly, and then he adds—just because he feels like he should—“Please.”

Steve smirks, but it’s not mocking. It’s loving.

“Never done that before, I take it?”

Bucky shakes his head. Steve’s smirk dissolves into fluttering eyelids and a loud groan.

“Oh, _Buck_ ,” he rumbles, bringing their foreheads together with a new and sudden intensity. “I know I did nothing to deserve what you wanna give, but I’m so thankful you want me to have it.”

It’s a funny thing to say. Bucky leans up into the offered kiss and immediately tries to deepen it, but Steve holds him steady and draws away a few inches, insisting that he wants to wait a minute more for him to come down from his orgasm. Bucky glares briefly, but he nods. It’s not so bad that they spend the next five minutes kissing and cuddling, but by the time Bucky is getting impatient again, he’s also a bundle of anxious energy.

“I’m ready. I want to—to go down on you.” Bucky bites his lips and tries not to look like he’s, well, but he _is_ … “But I think I’m nervous.”

“I’ll help you,” Steve breathes against Bucky’s parted mouth. “I’ll show you what to do, don’t worry. I promise you’re going to be perfect. We can stop any time you want.”

Bucky is grateful to Steve for wanting to make this easy. He’s thought about this for a long time—what it would be like to have Steve in his mouth, to have Steve _use_ his mouth—he just never thought it would involve taking such a massive, like… _Coke can_ between his jaws.

“Do you want to be on your belly in front of me, or do you want to be on the rug with a pillow under your knees?” He gestures to a couple of different spots across the expanse of coffee-colored sheets. “I can sit against the headboard, or on the edge of the bed. It’s up to you.”

Bucky considers the two options and tries to imagine himself in both places. He’s always thought of blowjobs as one person standing and the other person getting their knees roughed up against the floor.

“Which one is easier?” he asks.

“On your knees,” Steve answers, and Bucky can tell he’s being honest. “On the floor. It would be gentler on your neck and your jaw.”

Bucky glances down again at the width of Steve’s cock, considering its size and how it could fit into his mouth—if at all—and he realizes there’s nothing about it that could possibly be easy on any part of him. It’s just what it is, he supposes, so he might as well go with what he really wants to do.

“I think I’d still rather be on my stomach,” Bucky says. He sets his jaw, ready, locking eyes with Steve.

Steve smiles and brushes a thumb along his jaw. “Anything you want, sweetheart, you can have it. I’ll help you either way.”

He gives Bucky one more reassuring kiss before moving up the bed and situating himself with his back against the headboard, thighs spread, knees bent slightly, and then Bucky can do nothing but stare at the sight with his mouth slightly agape.

Steve looks so fucking, just… _manly_ with his firm body and his long legs with that handsome amount fuzz covering them, big balls hanging down between. He crooks his lips up and gives his hard dick a stroke while Bucky looks on. The foreskin looks different when Steve is erect; Bucky can see how it moves easily over the head and the top of the shaft when Steve works it. He wants to feel it move under his lips, too.

…And now his mouth is watering.

“Take your time, sweet thing,” Steve says, and then gently pats the sheets between his legs. “I know you’ll make it good for me.”

Bucky sucks in a too-loud, too-nervous breath and steels himself, and then he moves onto his stomach. Steve gives him an affectionate look and coaxes him forward with a comforting hand on the back of his head.

“Do you want me to suggest what you do?” Steve asks once Bucky is positioned close. “Or do you want to decide on your own?”

Bucky looks over the intimidating size of the thing in front of him, and his throat bobs on a swallow. He feels the warm flush returning to his cheeks.

“I want you to tell me.”

He looks up when Steve threads fingers through the hair on the top of his head and finds a tender smile directed at him.

“Okay,” Steve agrees. “Yeah, sweetheart. I can do that. We’re gonna start out real easy. You’re just going to use your lips and your tongue, don’t try to put Daddy in your mouth yet. Does that sound alright?”

Bucky nods; he thinks he gets it. He’s probably too scared to start any other way, if he’s being honest.

“Good. So good for me. Why don’t you start by putting your hands around it?”

He does as he’s asked. Bucky wraps the fingers of his left hand around the middle of Steve’s shaft, and oh, but—but they only go a little more than halfway?—and then he looks up at Steve for his next instruction only to find him cocking his head with an expression that almost looks… sympathetic.

“Your _hands_ , sweetheart,” Steve clarifies. He chuckles, but it’s a sweet sound. “I think you’ll need to use both of them.”

Bucky blushes and ducks his head, because yeah, he can see exactly what Steve’s got and he feels kind of stupid for ever assuming he could do anything with just one hand. The look on his face must say it all, because the next second Steve is cupping it and bringing Bucky’s gaze upwards.

“Oh, no, no, honey, you aren’t—don’t. Look… With someone else?” The tendons in Steve’s neck and jaw tighten for a moment, but then loosen. “Yeah. Probably. But with your Daddy?”

Steve shakes his head slowly and gestures down towards his dick in a way that seems bizarrely polite and modest, as if he’s silently saying, _“Look, sweetheart, we both know what we’re dealing with.”_

“I, um, yeah,” Bucky mutters through a shy half-smile. He has his second hand join the first, wrapping around Steve’s cock, using them to cover the girth in tandem. “Am I better like this?”

“Jesus,” Steve breathes, laughing. He moves his hand down to the back of Bucky’s neck. “You’re perfect, Buck. You are so, so good for me. Listen so sweetly.”

Bucky keeps his eyes on Steve’s, and they share a moment that feels too sweet and sincere for the lewdness of Bucky gearing up to suck his first dick. He feels overcome by the amount of affection in those blue eyes. Steve doesn’t really look like a man about to get a blowjob as much as he looks like a man who is… Well. Really, really happy to be alive.

Bucky is glad he’s doing this with Steve instead of someone else.

“Alright, ready?” Steve asks, and he waits for Bucky’s nod. “Why don’t you scoot yourself forward just a little bit more so those pretty lips can reach Daddy’s cock. You can start with giving it a kiss, if that’s what you’d like.”

That sounds easy, so Bucky goes for it. He readjusts himself so he’s closer to Steve in the vee of his legs, supporting himself on his elbows while he keeps both hands around Steve’s thick shaft. The tip is purple-red, glistening with a tiny bead of clear fluid, and Bucky finds that he really wants to lick it off—so he does.

Steve’s cock tastes like salt and musk and a hint of clean soap. Bucky is immediately addicted to it. There’s light, easy chuckling in his ears now— _“Oh, I see, so it’s_ that _kind of kissing?”_ —but for once, Bucky doesn’t say something snarky. He’s too focused on his task.

He runs his tongue over the head a few times like he’s trying to get all the pre-come, even when another bead forms as soon as he’s licked away the one before it. It’s nice; it makes Bucky feel like he’s turning Steve on enough to make his cock leak a lot.

“Doing so good, honey,” Steve coos. “Try licking up the long parts now. You see that big vein?”

Steve guides Bucky through it just like he’d promised he would, never taking his hands off Bucky’s skin or his eyes off his face, and Bucky finds out quickly that he loves to suck dick. He doesn’t even know if he’s doing it well from a technical standpoint—he can only get about an inch down—but he knows Steve likes the way he uses his tongue and his lips to get it wet, to suck on as much of the tip as he can fit his mouth around. He knows Steve likes it because Steve keeps telling him he does with things like, _“So sweet, just like that, keep moving those hands,”_ and, _“Baby, you don’t need to try to fit your lips around that, you’re making me crazy doin’ it just how you’ve been.”_ He even seems to be getting a little bit loopy if some of the things that come out of his mouth are anything to go by, funny things that don’t totally make sense, _“Jesus, sweetheart, gonna put me in my next grave.”_

When it starts looking like Steve is _really_ feeling it, getting into it, he bends his knees more and digs his heels into the sheets. The readjustment leaves more room for his heavy-looking balls to hang loose, and oh, God, Bucky wants—he wants—

“Can I…?”

Steve looks at him, breathless, and he seems to understand exactly what Bucky is asking.

“You think it would feel nice for Daddy to have your tongue on his balls, sweet boy?”

Bucky’s mind sifts through memories of all the times he’s jerked off and found himself using his free hand to tug down between his legs, how good that felt. He gives Steve a strong nod.

“Yeah? Me, too,” Steve smiles, raising his eyebrows and gesturing downward. “Why don’t you give it a try? You can keep your hands rubbing on my cock while you see if we like it.”

Steve has just the right amount of hair on his balls. They’re big and almost hot to the touch with a fair bit of soft, loose skin between them and his cock, like his balls get so heavy they have to have extra leeway to hang down low. Bucky doesn’t think his mouth has ever produced so much saliva at once.

He can’t help it; Bucky suddenly wants to get this whole blowjob wet, to hear squelching and Steve’s moans as they vibrate off the walls. He draws up with confidence that materializes from seemingly nowhere and lets a long string of spit drip from his mouth down onto Steve’s cockhead, and Steve’s moan _does_ rumble through the room when Bucky uses both hands to rub the slickness up and down, getting it messy. He returns his lips and face to Steve’s balls while he continues stroking the shaft, and he gets his face just as involved as his tongue, licking and sucking and rubbing his nose and cheeks around. He wants to make this sloppy and good for Steve, he wants to—

“—Fuck, _yes_ baby boy, so good, so good, I—Oh, no, just lick them, sweetheart. You can try fitting them in your mouth later, you— _Jesus_ , baby. That’s it. You make Daddy feel so good.”

There’s something just so carnal about rubbing Steve’s virility all over his face—arguably the most intimate part of his or any person’s body—and if he hadn’t already come twice, Bucky would be hard as a rock just from this. There’s a voice in the back of his mind telling him that he’s kind of degrading himself by rubbing his cheeks and nose all over Steve’s cock and balls, but he decides not to let it worry him that it turns him on; it feels good, and he’s gonna embrace it.

“Christ, honey, _fuck_ ,” Steve gasps, and Bucky feels proud of himself, because he can tell Steve is starting to really lose it. “Come give Daddy’s cock more kisses, come bring those pretty lips— _shit!”_

Bucky leaves Steve’s balls and does as he’s asked, smacking his lips against the underside and tonguing the slit and it feels so good, Bucky feels so good, and his Daddy says that he _is_ good and—

“Oh _fuck_ , no—Bucky, wait!”

Everything changes really quickly. Steve’s hand in his hair grows tight at the same time that Bucky feels himself losing his goddamn mind at the first big burst of salt on his tongue. He hears himself whining loud and tries hard to envelop Steve’s cockhead with his lips, and he almost gets there, but then suddenly he can feel the veritable _flood_ of heat filling his mouth and starting to bloat out his cheeks and he has to pull off before he chokes on it—or maybe he’s pulled off before he chokes on it, Steve’s hand tugging tight on his hair and removing Bucky’s hands and that deep, wrecked voice ordering Bucky to _“pull off now,”_ so then he has to let go.

The thick come filling his throat and mouth escapes immediately, pouring down his chin and onto Steve’s thigh in hot white sheets while Bucky coughs out wetly. He manages to get his bearings several seconds later, blinking out the fog of water in his eyes, and he’s met with the sight of Steve’s tight fist now desperately pumping his own pulsing cock just inches from his face. Steve is still holding his hair, keeping his mouth off, keeping Bucky clear, and Steve’s dick is—

—and Daddy’s dick is _still_ gushing.

It goes on and on and _on_ , and Bucky’s never seen anything like it, not in porn and certainly not in real life. He’s in shock but also in absolute delight, and Steve’s head is thrown back, his face and hairy chest splotchy and red, neck veins straining out.

“Fuck, _so_ sorry, baby,” Steve gets out through gritted teeth. “Hold on, _so fuckin’ sorry_ , jus’ hold on.

Bucky has never felt so turned on in his life. He stares at the mess still erupting from Steve’s thick cock and he can’t help it, he has to—he strains forward against the grip in his hair and takes the sting that leaves, closing his eyes, parting his lips as he tries his best to lean in and paint his own face with the hot spend he’s earned from his Daddy. Steve tugs him back again, but this time he doesn’t do it too hard.

Steve does stop coming, eventually. He stares down at what must surely be a lewd, filthy image: Bucky in front of him with his face and neck wrecked.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats for what must be the eighth time, gasping out his apologies. “So sorry, I—Here, just stay right there, baby.”

Bucky does stay where he is, on his stomach, in his daze, while Steve moves around him and fetches the towel that lies further down the bed. He starts cleaning Bucky up, kissing him on every inch of skin as he wipes away what feels like a gallon of come, and he whispers a thousand more apologies—even as Bucky can feel himself beaming.

He’s starry-eyed, he knows. He’s drunk on the sense of accomplishment.

“Come here, sweetheart,” Steve says, tossing the soaked top sheet and towel onto the floor. “Let me hold you.”

Bucky goes easily as Steve gathers him into his arms, facing each other. Steve brushes their noses together and closes his eyes, and he showers Bucky with praises and contrite apologies and then more praise, and then gratitude, and then soft, gentle kisses.

And then Bucky, well… He starts laughing. He _giggles_.

“That was…” he starts, breathy and happy through his disbelieving smile. “That was so _much_.”

He looks up at Steve’s eyes, now open, and for some reason, he expects to find something like silly embarrassment or shame, but he doesn’t. Steve’s face is serious—too serious.

“It was,” Steve nods. “I’m so sorry, Buck. I wanted to warn you and pull you off first. It doesn’t usually take me by that much surprise.”

“Does that mean I did good?” Bucky asks, and he’s happy he does, because Steve’s too-sober face finally dissolves back into contentment.

“Baby… I can’t even begin to say how perfect you were. That was amazing.” He plants a chaste kiss on Bucky’s forehead. “You made me feel so good. Thank you.”

Bucky suddenly feels tired. He knows it’s late in the morning already and that they should get up, but he’s comfortable and sated in Steve’s arms, and it’s next to impossible to keep his eyelids from sliding shut.

“Take a nap, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs into the top of his head. “You’ve earned it. I’ll wake you up to rinse off again, and then I’ll make lunch.”

Bucky wants to argue that making lunch is usually _his_ responsibility—or, at least, a role he’s assigned to himself—but his jaw is growing sore already, and all he wants to do is sleep.

“M’kay,” he yawns, burrowing himself further into Steve’s chest. “Thanks, Daddy.”

He’s out like a light before he can hear, _“I’ll be right here, sweetheart.”_

* * *

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for all the incredible comments on the last chapter! I was vibrating waiting for the weekend to share this one with you, too.
> 
> This chapter, in a huge way, is dedicated to Andy (they/🔪).


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

**  
s t e v e**

o c t o b e r 2 0, 2 0 2 5

| 238 days until harvest |

Steve doesn’t leave the bed while Bucky naps. He doesn’t move a single muscle.

Watching Bucky sleep isn’t new to him; Steve has been partaking in that pleasure—when an occasion presents—for more than three months now. The part that _is_ new is having Bucky naked in his arms under the glow of daylight as he lays in Steve’s sprawling bed. The features of Bucky’s face are sated and at ease. There’s nothing in this world that can get to him so long as Steve is the one who is allowed to hold him.

He tries to tell himself _that’s_ the reason this can be okay. They’d been lucid, consenting adults last night as well as this morning, so for as long as Bucky still wants this, Steve would be cruel to deny him. He tells himself that this isn’t wrong, but good.

What he doesn’t do is wake Bucky up to tell him that Steve Grant doesn’t exist and never has. He doesn’t shake him awake to confess to him that the life of Steve Rogers has only ever brought dust to Bucky’s own. He stays still instead, and he lies.

Steve knows he’ll have to do it eventually; sooner, rather than later. He knows Bucky will only feel more betrayed the longer he waits, but it’s so difficult for Steve to reconcile that fact with the reality that he’s betraying Bucky already in every second he goes without speaking the truth.

So Steve doesn’t move while Bucky sleeps in his arms. When Bucky does wake, the real world will wake with him. But, for as long as Bucky is asleep, Steve has everything he needs in his arms and Bucky will remain unhurt, safe—maybe even from him.

Only Bucky does wake. His consciousness may bring consequences of its own, but at least there are a million more glorious things about it, like the way his gray eyes shine when they’re rested and bright. It’s easy for Steve to want to smile when Bucky’s smiling up at him.

But perhaps the greatest reward is seeing Bucky’s face when he realizes he’s still wearing Steve's plug. The expression alone makes Steve want to flip him over and fuck him with the toy all over again.

They lay together for a while smiling and quietly basking in sweet feelings, in the success of first times—even the hiccups that had come with it. Steve pushes his guilt down for Bucky’s sake. He listens when Bucky inevitably has questions that Steve can’t begrudge him of asking.

“When you came,” he starts with an innocent-looking blush, “was that, like…”

“Normal?” Steve supplies, trying not to wince when Bucky nods. “Yes. Sometimes.”

Bucky chuckles awkwardly, adorably, and he bites his lip.

“Was it because you were, like… backed up?”

Steve has to laugh with him. He kisses Bucky’s forehead because he’s helpless not to put his lips somewhere on his soft skin anytime it’s in front of him.

“That might have been part of it. But usually, it happens like that when I’m particularly aroused, even more so when I’m with a partner.” He gives Bucky a playful nip on his lips just to see him smile. “Especially a very sexy boy like you.”

Bucky’s blush grows like wildfire across his skin, spreading down to his neck and chest. Steve makes a mental note to compliment and praise him at any chance he gets.

“I thought it might have been because you didn’t come last night,” Bucky murmurs.

There’s a tinge of disappointment in his voice, which almost makes Steve laugh, except he doesn’t want Bucky to feel embarrassed or think that the reason Steve didn’t come had anything to do with some failure on Bucky’s part. He brushes a tendril of hair away from Bucky’s face and looks him in the eyes.

“I didn’t,” he concedes. “But that’s okay. That’s not why I enjoy having sex with you. Nothing could have felt as good for me as getting to make you come twice.”

“But you were hard?” Bucky argues. “I remember.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean I absolutely needed to come. Everyone’s body is different, sweetheart. When I come”—he grins into Bucky’s jaw before bumping their noses together—“just like you saw earlier, there’s… a lot. But I don’t need to do that often. You just made me come hard enough to last me for days.”

Steve gives Bucky a gentle kiss on his lips when Bucky smiles up at him shyly.

“But... you _could_ have come? If you’d wanted?”

“I could have. I was very turned on from getting to touch your body, and from you touching mine.” He lowers his voice and brushes a thumb across Bucky’s cheek. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you.”

Bucky lets out the quietest gasp, closing his eyes and leaning into the touch, getting lost in it. Steve thinks he’s forgotten all about his little line of questioning, but then his eyes flutter open again.

“Why didn’t you come, then?” Bucky presses. “Afterwards?”

Steve sighs. He knows they need to have a deeper conversation about this—and many other things—but he had been hoping to put it off for a while longer in favor of floating, content, up on this shared cloud.

“You were really out of it, Buck—which is fine, which is _good_.” Steve smiles so Bucky knows he’s telling the truth. “I want to make you feel like that. But it was our first time together, and I wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing anything to you—around you, even—without you being more aware.”

“What would you have done?” Bucky asks, eyes curious. “If it wasn’t our first time.”

Steve smiles fondly and sinks his head further into the pillow.

“If we’d talked about it beforehand and decided on the kinds of things we want to do when we’re together?”

Bucky nods, and his breathing picks up almost imperceptibly. He always gets excited when Steve hints at having dirty ideas—and even more excited when Steve shares them.

“Yeah,” Bucky answers, the curiosity in his eyes fading to something darker. “If we’d already done that, talked about it, how would you…”

Steve’s grin grows as he pulls Bucky further in.

“Well… If we had already talked about it and decided it would be okay, I think I would have liked to use your body to make myself feel good.”

Steve can practically feel Bucky’s pulse accelerate, fluttering with exhilaration at the possibilities in Steve’s tone.

“You would have fucked me?” he asks, expression bright and hopeful.

Steve chuckles, and the hand he has on Bucky’s waist wanders down to push on the base of the plug. It’s gentle and playful, but the small amount of pressure makes Bucky gasp.

“No, baby,” he says. “Remember what I said. We have to train you up for that.”

“Then how would you have…” Bucky trails off, trying to keep his dilated eyes open at the thought of what comes next. “… _Used_ me?”

And Steve goes from aroused and amused to feeling like a goddamn beast in the width of a hummingbird’s heartbeat. Hearing Bucky say ‘used’ like that’s what he actually wants Steve to do to him… Steve wants to _growl_. He wants to laugh, too, but the sound of it would be too dark. He wants to list off every little thing he’s ever thought of doing to Bucky while biting just as many new marks into his neck, but they’ve got neither the time nor the inches of skin for that. He wants to push Bucky onto his back and fuck him with his cock instead of a handle of glass.

“Well,” he starts after a strong, deep breath, pushing down the monstrous feelings that have taken over inside his chest. “There are a lot of ways I could have done that. But last night?”

Steve surprises Bucky by flipping him around in his arms like he weighs nothing to him—because to him, Bucky doesn’t, but Steve should still stop doing that—and laying him down on his other side, facing away.

“I think that I would have put you on your side and curled up behind you, fit all of your lines against mine. Just like this.”

Bucky arches, pressing back into Steve’s lap. They’re both still bare, but they’re also both sated, so all Bucky gets is the bulk and heat of Steve’s soft cock against the curve of his ass. He moans regardless.

“And then I would have grabbed that lube over there.” Steve points to the tube at the far edge of the mattress. “And I would have put my hand between your thighs.” He does exactly that as he speaks, lifting Bucky’s top leg just a couple of inches, caressing the space along the inside. “And then I would have spread that slick all up and down your soft, pretty skin between here.”

Bucky is breathing hard in his arms. Steve knows that if he hadn’t just come twice already this morning, his dick would be just as hard.

“Wha—why there?” Bucky asks, trying to ascertain why the hell Steve would want the inside of his thighs to be all wet and smothered in lube.

Steve hums into his ear and gives the lobe a little nip. Bucky gasps at the sensation.

“Because then Daddy would have taken his hard, hurting cock, and he would have pushed it right between your legs.” Steve sneaks a hand down and lets his fingers slide into the gap he’s created, touching Bucky high up between his thighs in the vulnerable space just below his taint and balls. He pats the spot gently. “Right here.”

The back of Bucky’s neck is starting to sweat beneath his lips, and Steve can tell he still doesn’t understand where he’s going with this. He rests his chin on Bucky’s shoulder and watches Bucky tip his head down, and together they look past the planes and little ridges of his chest, his stomach, even past his sweet, soft cock, because what they see beyond are the tips of Steve’s fingers peeking out from between Bucky’s legs.

“Oh, I—”

“—And since it would be all nice and _wet_ and warm—just like you, sweetheart—Daddy could just hold onto these little hips,” and Steve demonstrates with his hands, letting go of Bucky’s thigh and gripping both sides of his pelvis, “and I could pull back, and then…”

Steve spoons them together tightly and starts thrusting his own hips forward rhythmically, still slow but doing more than just grinding. He waits for Bucky to catch up with the implication.

“Oh my God,” Bucky gasps, head tilting backwards onto Steve’s shoulder.

He gets soft laughter in his ear from Steve, a stripe licked up his neck.

“You get it now, honey? You see how good this would feel for Daddy, getting to fuck his cock tight between these strong, gorgeous legs?”

Bucky lets out a long, lovely whining sound, and Steve can’t help but use a hand to twist Bucky’s head towards him so he can give him a wet, filthy kiss.

“Yes, Daddy,” Bucky gasps into his mouth. “Want you to—want it now, I— _God_. Want you to do that anytime you need.”

Steve hums contentedly, and he grinds forward in a lazy circle instead of thrusting, letting Bucky feel how his sated cock is only barely hard. For as much as he wants to start something up again, Bucky’s own dick needs a break, and they need to visit about a few important items.

“Thank you, baby. But we need to talk about how we want all of this to go.” Steve stops his gentle grinding and turns Bucky back around until their faces are separated only by inches. “And we didn’t eat breakfast. I want to get some lunch in you.”

“Okay,” Buck agrees quietly, slowing his breathing. Steve thinks he must always be biting his lips because it helps him to think. “Lunch first. And then we talk?”

Steve smiles.

“Yeah, Buck. And then we talk.”

  
  


—

Lunch is a simple affair of leftover soup and fresh grilled cheese sandwiches. Steve makes sure that Bucky eats it all.

The two of them share an easy, relaxed state of quiet as they eat, but they’re not completely silent. Steve feels like almost as much of a giddy schoolboy on the inside as Bucky looks on the outside. They can’t keep their hands away; they brush fingers and trade chaste kisses that taste of tomato soup and sweet, smiling promises.

But Steve knows it’s one thing to bathe in the afterglow and feel like they can handle anything the world throws their way. It’s another thing entirely to enter into a relationship—sexual or romantic—without establishing some basics first.

So they talk.

The dishes get set aside in the sink as soon as their plates have been cleared and Steve sees Bucky beginning to fidget with an excited kind of anxiousness. He doesn’t know what Bucky thinks they’re going to talk about, if it’s just kinky, dirty questions—and, in part, it will be—but he doesn’t hesitate to pull him into the living room and sit down with a pat on his lap.

Bucky grins, _glows_ , and he eagerly climbs on and circles his arms around Steve’s neck.

It’s inevitable that they end up kissing and touching for several long moments; Bucky had initiated it, and Steve is only a man. It’s impossible not to run his lips and hands over every inch of Bucky now that he has permission to do it. As pleasurable and fiery as it feels, Steve makes an effort to push them in a calmer, more quiet direction once their kissing becomes fiercer. This moment is for communicating, not for Steve to undress Bucky and tease his barely-stretched hole with a plug for hours on end, no matter how much they both want that.

“Hang on, sweetheart,” Steve chuckles, bringing a few inches of breathing room between them once Bucky has begun to shove his tongue in Steve’s mouth—and _goddamn_ if his inexperience with kissing isn’t one of his guiltiest turn-ons. “Talking, remember?”

Bucky pouts in that flawless way he does, but he also calms after a few slow breaths.

“Right,” he mutters. “So, what. Um…”

There’s a moment when it seems to dawn on Bucky just how much they have to talk about, and maybe he’s realizing it isn’t all kinky sexual topics, but also the heavier things. Steve decides then and there that he needs to let Bucky take the lead in this conversation, no matter how scary it could feel for his boy.

“What are we supposed to talk about, you mean?” Steve asks for him. Bucky gives an affirming nod. “I have a few things I know we need to discuss. But I think maybe we should start with any questions you have. Anything.”

Bucky’s face goes through a series of emotions. It begins at surprise, then anxiousness, before finally melting into something like understanding. Steve can tell he’s realizing he probably has a lot of questions on his mind, and maybe he’s trying to pick one to start with.

“What… What is this?” Bucky asks, motioning between them.

He doesn’t meet Steve’s eyes when he says it, as though he’s afraid Steve will take this opportunity to reject him, or to tell him he’s only looking for sex. Steve is quick and direct with his answer.

“This is me wanting to take care of you,” he says, lifting Bucky’s chin in one hand so their eyes are on each other’s again. “I want to be your lover, yes, but I also have feelings for you.” He pauses, deciding if he should elaborate, and eventually he lands on meeting himself in the middle. “Deep feelings. But, Buck… _This_ …” He gestures between them as Bucky had. “This is whatever you want it to be. And you don’t have to know the answer to that right now.”

Bucky is quiet for a moment, but it doesn’t feel like a dreadful sort of quiet to Steve. There’s a tinge of magenta dusting the skin of his cheekbones.

“I have feelings for you, too,” Bucky admits. Even the gray in his eyes looks shy. “Have you ever done this before?” Steve is about to swallow a laugh when Bucky clarifies his question. “Like… Have you ever been someone’s _Daddy?”_

Steve smirks, cocking his head. He can’t tell if Bucky is already feeling jealous or if he’s genuinely just curious about Steve’s history, but either way, he knows in his gut Bucky won’t actually be hurt by his answer. He’s seemed to find a sense of comfort thus far in the fact that Steve has a wealth of sexual experience to share.

“Yes,” he answers honestly. “And no. I’ve had men in my bed who wanted to be my boy, so I gave that to them.”

“Oh.” Bucky bites his lip. “Did you like it?”

“Very much. But it was different than this.”

Bucky pauses before he says anything else. He looks like he’s searching for the right words.

“What will you and I do together?”

Steve cups Bucky’s face in one hand and softly joins their lips. It’s tender, short; it’s just Steve showing him one more way that _his_ Daddy wants him—now and every day.

“I’m going to take care of you,” Steve says when he pulls away, repeating his earlier answer. “As much as you let me, for as long as you’ll let me. And _you_ …” Steve stops to kiss Bucky twice, once on each of his pinked-up cheeks. “You aren’t going to do a single damn thing you don’t want to do. I won’t do that, and I won’t let that happen.”

Bucky lets out a deep, warm breath before closing his eyes. Steve isn’t sure if what he’s looking at right now are Bucky’s existing fears being acknowledged and assuaged, or if it’s Bucky realizing for the first time that Steve _could_ make him do things he doesn’t want, but knowing he won’t.

“I have been a Daddy before, Buck,” he continues after the short silence. “But I’ve never been someone’s Daddy the way I’m going to be yours.”

Bucky blinks until he’s giving Steve a wide-eyed look, steel irises and gorgeous features and everything full of trust.

“You haven’t?”

Steve shakes his head, honest.

“I haven’t. It’s always been…” He stops and tilts his mouth up in a half-smirk, knowing he’s about to make Bucky flush even more. “People from clubs. One night, maybe two.” He brushes his thumb over the sweet dimple in Bucky’s chin and watches the hot red color spread across his face. “I’ve never wanted to take care of someone the way I want to take care of you.”

The sentiment seems to overwhelm Bucky, so Steve allows him a minute to sit and absorb. He wonders which part is hitting Bucky the deepest: the mention that Steve has frequented sex clubs, or the fact that he’s never blended those dynamics with a relationship. Steve thinks maybe it’s none of those things at all, but perhaps simply that Steve is promising to take care of Bucky when he’s only ever been abandoned, on his own for too long, craving for someone to recognize and nurture what he has to offer the world.

“So, it’s more than just a… kinky thing,” Bucky says after a while of chewing on his lips and breathing through his nose. “But it also _is_ a kinky thing?”

It’s a good question, so Steve thinks about it—and barely succeeds at not laughing—because he doesn’t want to answer in a way that might sound misleading to the inexperienced mind.

“There’s some of that in there, yes. But if you’re comfortable with it, I’d like it to extend outside of the bedroom.”

The idea apparently makes Bucky very happy, because he nods quickly and his lips stretch into a wide smile.

“I want that,” he says, before bunching his eyebrows together at some new thought and lowering his voice. “If it’s kinky, do we, like… Do we need a safe word?”

Steve doesn’t hesitate before shaking his head.

“Your safe word is ‘stop.’ This isn’t about whips and chains for me, sweetheart. If there’s something you want to try, we can. If a day in the future comes when you don’t want ‘stop’ to mean just that, we can talk about it then.” He tightens his arm around Bucky’s waist and scoots him in closer on his lap. “But for now, all I want is to be your Daddy. So, if my boy says ‘stop’—or if I think we need to stop.” Steve pauses to slide a finger under Bucky’s chin in a way that holds half the intention of scolding and the rest of playful warning. “Like I did last night, when you tried to take too much? That’s when I stop.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, taking a second to process Steve’s words. “Okay.”

Steve asks, but Bucky says he doesn’t have any other questions or burning thoughts for the moment, and Steve makes sure he knows they can always revisit this discussion later. They end up kissing lazily for a while after, nuzzling into each other’s necks.

“There’s one more thing, baby,” Steve mumbles into the side of Bucky's face before pulling back. He rubs his hands up and down Bucky’s sides, partly for reassurance, but mostly just to feel his warmth beneath his fingertips. “Do you maybe remember having some sweet, fuzzy feelings last night? After I made you come all over us?”

Bucky huffs out a shocked laugh at Steve’s sudden dirty comment, but his chin nudges against Steve's jaw when he nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I remember. It felt good.”

“Did you know what was going on around you?”

Bucky’s eyebrows come together like he thinks it’s an odd question, but then his eyes drift and his face softens. Steve can tell he’s reaching back into his memories.

“Yes,” Bucky answers. “Sort of? I… You made me come again. And then you kissed me a lot, and I liked that, too. And then you put me under the blankets and you, um. I think you left for a minute?”

“I did,” Steve confirms. “I got up to get a towel. Something to clean you up.” He gives into the urge to brush his knuckles against Bucky’s flushing cheeks just for the sake of touching them. “Did it make you feel anxious when I left the bed?”

“Not really. I…” Bucky trails off with a quiet laugh. “I missed you, though. I liked having you on top of me.”

Steve brings their lips together again, a tender, closed-mouth kiss, just enough to let Bucky know that Steve had liked having Bucky under him even more.

“Sweetheart,” he coos when they pull apart. “There’s something called ‘subspace.’ Have you ever heard of that?”

Bucky shakes his head.

“No. Is it a… sex thing?”

“Mostly,” Steve chuckles. “But more importantly, it’s a submission thing. It’s a warm, floating feeling you can get when you’re letting someone else have your trust.” He tucks a lock of Bucky’s hair behind his ear. “So they can take care of you.”

“Oh,” Bucky says with that shy smile Steve can never get enough of. “‘Take care of’… Like in the Daddy way you were talking about?”

Steve nods. “In that way, or in whatever way you feel you need to be taken care of. For some people, it’s pain.” He stops, lifting Bucky’s chin to make sure he’s looking Steve in the eyes. “And I don’t want to do that with you. To you. That’s a hard limit for me.” His finger drops away. “But for other people, subspace can come just from handing over their control, but how it goes is always up to the submissive. Subspace happens when your brain gets flooded with hormones that make you feel really good. A lot of people like to go there.”

“Is that what happened to me last night?” Bucky asks, tilting his head. His eyes are full of something akin to wonder. “Am I your ‘submissive?’”

Steve smiles, fond. He lets go of Bucky’s chin and pets his soft hair.

“Not quite, sweetheart. I want to take care of you, and I suppose I do want to dominate you, but unless what you’re doing is going to hurt you? Then you’re the one who will always set the rules. And last night got pretty spacey—pretty fuzzy—but it would take more than what we did to put you in subspace. It usually takes much harder play.” Steve lets himself thumb over the edge of Bucky’s collarbone and the series of his marks he finds there. “Subspace doesn’t ever happen for most people, especially with the sort of thing we’re doing. But you might get close.”

“But if it wasn’t subspace, what was it?”

“It was those same brain hormones I was talking about,” Steve answers. “Just… not as many. But the reason I needed to know how you felt last night is that I still need to care for you the same way I would if you were in subspace. That’s my responsibility.” He pauses, smiling. “That’s what a good Daddy should do.”

“Is that what you did last night?” Bucky asks. “With the, um…” He pauses, looking sheepish. “With the kisses and the washcloth?”

Steve can do nothing but beam at the question. That part had been Steve’s favorite.

“Yes,” he says. “And I also made sure we had plenty of my skin on yours as you were falling asleep. I needed to bring those good feelings down slowly, or else you could have ended up feeling very bad afterwards.”

That comment piques Bucky’s curiosity.

“How?”

“You could feel sad. You might even shake a little, or cry.”

“I cried last night, though,” Bucky points out, his face a confusion of drawn-together eyebrows and pretty, flushing cheeks. “It didn’t feel bad.”

“Oh, sweet _boy,”_ Steve croons, holding Bucky’s face in both hands so he can brush his thumbs across his jawline. “I saw that you cried. But what you did was a good kind of crying.” He turns Bucky’s head, leaning in to whisper the rest into his ear, like someone else could overhear him. “I want to make you cry like that again.”

Bucky makes a quiet keening noise and turns his face back, begging for a kiss with his eyes. Steve gives it to him. Their lips move together like that for a long time, not passionately or frantically, but quiet and gentle. Steve spends more time with his fingers tracing the sensitive skin of Bucky’s back than he does invading Bucky’s mouth with his tongue.

Eventually, their kisses die down, but Steve’s touches don’t stop.

“Those feelings,” Steve continues, “that fuzziness, that unawareness… That’s why I said I couldn’t do something to you—not even around you—when you’re feeling like that. It’s about consent for me.”

Bucky frowns, apparently disappointed about something Steve said.

“So… Whenever I get like that, that means we have to stop having sex until I come back?”

“No, not necessarily,” Steve answers. “But that’s why this conversation is so important. What happens to you is always up to you. We can talk about consent and rules before we have sex. It’s called negotiation.” The smile returns to his face when Bucky laughs at the technical-sounding term. “And you should know that we can always revisit this conversation. You can stop me in the middle of sex—you _should_ stop me—and you can tell me if what we’re doing doesn’t feel good or makes you uncomfortable. We can adjust, or we can stop altogether. So if anything you decide now changes, you should tell me, and then we’ll talk about it.”

Steve can see Bucky visibly thinking through Steve’s words. He nods.

“Okay,” he says, soft. “I think I get it now.”

“Good,” Steve smiles. “So, we need to decide. What do _you_ want to happen when you start feeling fuzzy?” He gives Bucky a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Tell Daddy what he should do.”

Bucky is quiet for a few seconds, which makes Steve feel better. He wants Bucky to think about his answer and not just say whatever he thinks Steve wants to hear.

“I… I want you to keep going,” he answers, and then he leans in closer and lowers his voice. “I want you to feel good, too.”

Steve doesn’t bother to suppress the shiver that runs down his spine. He lets both his hands fall down to Bucky’s waist, where he circles his fingers and presses his thumbs together just above his navel. A sick part of him wonders what it would be like to press down there and feel the shape of his own cock. Steve has never been with such a small man before, and he’s surprised to find that he trusts himself not to break him.

His body, at least.

“And you?” Steve asks, closing the distance between their faces even more until they’re just a breath apart. He’s teasing for the sake of teasing, now. “If I want to keep making you feel good while you’re floating on sweet feelings?”

Bucky nods. Their noses brush.

“That too. Yes.”

Steve squeezes Bucky’s waist again before running his hands up and down his sides sensually, eventually slipping fingertips just beneath his shirt.

“What if the things I do to make myself feel good involve touching you, having parts of me inside of you?” His fingers creep in further, ghosting over Bucky’s hips. “Toys, even. Would that be okay with you?”

 _“Yes._ I…” Bucky pauses his speech to draw in a much-needed, steadying breath. Steve can tell he’s trying not to seem too desperate for a kiss. “I want that. I want that a lot.”

Steve leans his face in as close as possible while still not allowing their lips to touch.

“Okay, sweetheart. Then that’s what we’ll do.”

A few long seconds pass with a game of chicken, and then Steve finally takes mercy on him and closes the gap. He captures Bucky’s lips in an intense kiss that’s meant to demonstrate the promises of the future just as much as it’s meant to make him squirm; _‘I’ll touch you how you want, kiss you how you want, use you how you want.’_

Bucky begins grinding against Steve before long, pushing their cocks together through the thin fabric of their boxers—the only bottoms they had put on for lunch—while he presses his ass into Steve’s lap.

Seeing an opportunity, Steve drops one hand to push on the press of the plug lightly—but then he doesn’t move.

The stillness of it makes Bucky go _mad_. He pushes his ass downward, starting and stopping and starting again while Steve remains calm, controlled, as though he’s just here to kiss and hold Bucky close and do absolutely nothing else. He lays back, smiling against Bucky’s lips, enjoying the taste and sight of him slowly losing it on Steve’s lap.

“You ever touch yourself thinking about Daddy?” he asks, breaking their kiss to breathe out a tease.

Bucky nods frantically, rocking himself backwards and forwards onto the plug. His face is so flushed that Steve can feel the heat radiating onto his own.

“Yes,” he breathes. “I… Did you, Daddy? Did you ever jerk off thinking—oh!” Bucky stops with a whimper, and Steve can tell the plug must be pressing against his prostate. “Did you ever think of m-me?”

At first, Steve can do nothing but laugh dryly against Bucky’s chin, not at the question but at how pathetic his answer is. The last thing he wants is to admit his awful truth, but he supposes he’s set himself up for it by asking Bucky the same question.

“Only every night,” he rasps, nipping at Bucky’s jawline and deciding to be honest. “Most mornings. Couldn’t keep a sweet boy like you out of my mind.”

And Bucky likes that thought, apparently, because he doubles the speed of the movement of his hips.

“Did you…” he gasps. “Did you think about fucking me?”

Bucky’s dick is hard against his, a wet spot just starting to form on the fabric. Steve has chubbed up in his boxers, too, but he knows he won’t come; he doesn’t want to. All Steve wants is to watch Bucky go crazy and get himself off.

“That, yes.” He tilts his head to reconnect their lips and lick into Bucky’s mouth, breathing out the rest. “And kissing you. Touching you. Making you feel good.”

They’re kissing with their eyes open, so Steve can see Bucky’s expression grow hotter and more excited at the same time that adorable blush returns.

“Daddy, I… I did more than just jerk off.”

Something warm twists and then bursts low in his belly at Bucky’s admission. His mind goes to raging dark, hot places, imagining his boy alone in his bed trying to get his own fingers inside himself, but then struggling, crying for Daddy to help make them fit.

“That right, baby?” He kisses Bucky on the underside of his chin and gives into the urge to help him along with the hand on his hip. “Did you touch your tight hole thinking about Daddy?”

Bucky moans, rolling into Steve’s touch.

“Yes, _yes.”_

“One finger?” Steve asks, knowing the answer from last night but wanting to hear it again.

“No, I—I tried two,” he whispers, like it’s a secret just for Steve. “Like you did to me.”

Steve groans into Bucky’s collarbone. The sound echoes off the floorboards and the fading wallpaper.

“And what did you think about with your fingers in your body?” he rumbles, tightening his fingers around Bucky’s hips.

“You, _your_ fingers,” Bucky gasps. “Your cock. And your, um…” The heat on his face flares and sizzles against Steve’s. “Your tongue, Daddy. I wanted— _fuck_. Wanted everything.”

Steve can’t help it; he wraps all the way around Bucky’s waist with one arm and encourages the grinding and graceless rutting of his dick against Steve’s hip with new vigor, biting down on Bucky’s lip with a throaty growling sound.

“Tell me what you want right now, sweetheart.” He presses on the plug with added pressure. “Tell Daddy.”

Bucky whimpers pathetically, jerking his hips without finesse, and Steve wants to make him come like this—just like this, inside his clothes.

“Want you to… Oh, _fuck!_ It feels so good Da—”

“—Want your Daddy to fuck you, baby?” Steve teases, knowing he won’t do it but craving to see Bucky go wild over the words. “Right now, right here, on Daddy’s couch? In Daddy’s house?” His hand creeps down under Bucky’s waistband to graze the swell of his ass cheeks, ghosting fingertips over the smooth glass nestled between them. “With your tiny, tight hole just _barely_ stretched out from Daddy’s littlest plug?” He lowers his voice to a dirty, quiet thing and breathes his next words low. “You want it right here, sweet boy? Or you want Daddy to have you in his bed?”

“Yes!” Bucky gasps. _“Yes_ , I—both!”

Steve chuckles darkly into Bucky’s ear and presses directly on the plug. Bucky keens and speeds up again, dick pressing even harder into Steve’s.

“I’ll fuck you, baby boy,” Steve promises, gravel seeping through gritted teeth. “Don’t you worry. I’ll have you. I’ll have you over and over, take you again and again once we teach this little body to fit Daddy’s fat cock.”

Bucky comes in his underwear with a shout. Steve quickly takes over for him once his form goes tight and stiff, grabbing his hips and rocking Bucky through it until he finally starts whimpering from the sensitivity.

Steve holds him while he returns to Earth. He knows he’ll need to guide Bucky upstairs soon to change and to remove the plug before they continue with the rest of their day, but for now, he lets them both be content while he strokes Bucky’s sides and whispers nonsense into his ear, tender things, sweet things.

“What about you?” Bucky mumbles after a while, running a hand down to cup Steve’s slowly softening cock through his underwear.

Steve hums and presses a kiss to the shell of Bucky’s ear.

“Thank you, sweetheart. But Daddy’s okay.”

He presses lightly on the plug, and while Bucky’s gasp is still pleasured, Steve can hear the oversensitivity edging into discomfort.

“I think that’s enough of wearing this for now,” he says. “Let’s get it out of you.”

He leads Bucky upstairs, where they make a stop in Bucky’s room. Steve tells him to grab a new pair of underwear and some jeans— _“But I think we’ll have you wear another of my shirts today”_ —and then they return to Steve’s bathroom.

Bucky blushes furiously when Steve asks him to bend over the bathroom counter, and he tries to protest at first, but Steve doesn’t allow him the embarrassment.

“I know you _can_ do it yourself,” Steve argues, infusing sternness and authority into his voice. “But this is your first time with a plug, and I want to make sure you don’t get hurt pulling it out.”

Bucky eventually gives up his struggle and bends over, crossing his arms in a pout across the edge of the counter and planting his face into them.

“Fine,” comes his muffled acquiescence.

“Good boy.”

Steve tries to comfort him by peeling down his sticky underwear carefully, kissing and stroking the skin of his backside lovingly as it’s exposed. He’s pleased when he feels Bucky relax under his gentle ministrations.

He grips the base of the plug and begins to pull it out. Steve lets it sink back in every few centimeters, not to tease, but to make sure the stretch coming out isn’t too much at once. Eventually, it’s out completely, and Steve places the glass down carefully in the sink bowl.

“Oh my God,” Bucky mumbles, scandalized when he feels Steve thumbing around. “What’re you—”

“Shush, honey,” Steve interrupts. “Don’t you get all embarrassed on me. It’s my job to make sure this little hole is okay after I play with it.”

Steve takes in the sight of Bucky’s reddened ring of muscle, but he’s happy to see it’s not looking swollen. He’s tempted to lean down and kiss it, but he doesn’t, not at this point; he knows Bucky would be mortified if he did.

“Perfect, sweetheart,” Steve praises, taking his hands away and reaching over Bucky to wet a washcloth with a little warm water.

“Please tell me you’re not going to—oh, _fuck_ , this is weird.”

Steve chuckles while he gently dabs away the lube on the inside of Bucky’s cheeks.

“I did this last night, you know.”

“I know,” Bucky grumbles. “I guess. But I was too fucked-out to care.”

Once he’s done, Steve tosses the washcloth and wet-up boxers into the nearby laundry bin and helps Bucky into his new pair of underwear and one of Steve’s too-big t-shirts. He grabs the bottle of soap and shows Bucky how he washes the plug and dries it before putting it away. He doesn’t pull out the box in front of Bucky; he’s not ready to overwhelm him with the possibilities and options of all the things that could go inside him.

They both get dressed in Steve’s room, and Steve feels like he needs to keep touching Bucky for a while longer, farm work be damned. He pulls him onto his bed and turns on the television, just holding him, admiring Bucky as he dozes lightly.

They don’t stay there too long. Eventually, Bucky opens his eyes, and Steve makes sure Bucky gets a quick snack of fresh fruit as the reality of the workday slowly seeps in. It’s been one month since they planted, and after working with the Purdue Extension to form a plan for their clover experiment, today is the day they’ve marked on the calendar to collect the first of the progress samples they’re going to send in for nutrient testing.

“What depth did they say again?” Steve asks, pulling on his work boots.

Bucky crosses the mudroom to grab the letter from the small filing cabinet he’s worked hard to set up.

“Um, looks like just the top six inches.”

Steve nods. “We’ll need the post-hole digger then. You wanna grab it from the shed while I find us the best spot?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Bucky finishes lacing up his own boots and heads for the door, but Steve stops him, surprising him by pulling him into his arms and leaning down for a kiss.

“Just looking at you makes me happy,” he murmurs against Bucky’s lips. “You know that?”

Bucky laughs breathily and gets on his toes to deepen the kiss. Steve wants badly to use his enhanced strength to lift him by the waist and press him against the back door, but he doesn’t.

He needs to tell Bucky; he knows he does. His heart is too afraid of what Bucky will say when Steve tells him that Grant is his middle name, not his last.

“You make me happy, too.”

They leave the house and walk across the field together, but they part ways about a hundred yards out. Steve stops and begins looking for the best spot to collect their soil sample while Bucky continues on towards the storage shed next to the barn. He lets his fingers graze against the curve of Bucky’s ass as he leaves, just for the wry smile Bucky gives him over his shoulder as he walks away.

Steve paces the rows with his head down towards the dirt. The clover is truly looking healthy, he thinks. The planting guide says that their roots may be up to one and a half inches by this point, and the root nodules will have begun to form already. Something optimistic in Steve’s gut tells him the testing results will be promising.

He’s just decided on a soil pit location when he begins to wonder what’s keeping Bucky. Steve looks towards the shed, and his lungs constrict in his chest.

Bucky is running—full speed, faster than Steve has ever seen him move—darting in Steve’s direction. Steve races off to meet him halfway.

“Buck!” Steve shouts in alarm as they draw close. “What’s wrong? What did you—”

But his voice gets choked in his throat when he sees the redness in Bucky’s eyes, the gutted expression on his face. When he looks wide-eyed at Steve, his face is full of… hurt. Pain.

There might even be fear.

Steve tries to catch Bucky in his arms _—“I… Buck! Sweetheart!”—_ but Bucky resists, struggling out of it and trying to get away. Steve has no choice but to let him go despite the fact that he could hold him back easily if he were to decide to.

Bucky takes off, sprinting away from Steve, and Steve realizes he was never running towards him to begin with. He was running _past_ Steve, running in the direction of the house.

“Bucky!” he calls, but Bucky does not turn back.

Steve is caught between running after him and going to investigate what sent him into a panic. He sees Bucky run through the back door and hears the screen slam against its frame, and he decides that whatever has happened, Bucky is at least safe for now. Steve needs to find out what caused such a scare.

He turns towards the shed and finds the door still open. Steve uses his speed.

He’s inside in a matter of seconds.

The shed is as chaotically organized as it’s ever been. He only uses this tin-roof structure to keep things like wheelbarrows and shovels, some lumber, sometimes small parts that aren’t in danger of rusting. Steve had also shoved a few personal items in here back when he’d moved in, things from a past life. He hasn’t looked at them since.

Steve turns, peering around. He hadn’t seen Bucky with the post-hole digger in-hand when he’d run out, so Steve starts with seeing if he can locate that first. It’s not in the corner where he hangs the shovels and other long-handle tools like it should be. He continues to look around in the same area in places that seem like the most likely suspects for him or Bucky to have put it away incorrectly, but he doesn’t find it at all on that end of the shed.

Confused, heart still racing after seeing Bucky’s panicked face, Steve turns and paces to the other side of the shed, where he hardly keeps anything of farming relevance.

That’s when Steve sees it: the two metal scoops comprising the bottom of the missing post-hole digger. The tool has fallen to the dirt shed floor, and its handles are tangled up in the cloth of a gray, dusty sheet that Steve had used to cover a lump of junk from any rain that might have penetrated the shoddy roof. He hasn’t laid eyes on that particular pile of ancient, ignored things in two years.

He certainly sees it now. Steve looks over the uncovered items, and his heart skips a beat.

Then it stops altogether.

Red, silver, and blue lie in a series, a half-moon of faded, brushed color on the floor. The vibranium is jagged and broken from the last time he’d held it.

What’s left of Steve Rogers has fallen, forgotten and forsaken, from it’s stuffed-away corner on a dead piece of earth, bare and visible to any set of eyes that could cross it.

  
  


| _end of story_ **t h r e e** |

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may now proceed to story **f o u r** | _[The Root and the Stalk](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29385129/chapters/72187575)_ |

**Author's Note:**

> Your comments and kudos and shares [ [tumblr](https://the1918.tumblr.com/post/638392416048693248/the-farmer-daddy-steve-and-bucky-au-series-by) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/the1918Lynne/status/1348019180533112836?s=20) ] water farmer Steve's crops ❤
> 
> Thank you again to [ixalit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixalit) for beta and to Cera ([@ceratonia-siliqua](https://ceratonia-siliqua.tumblr.com/) or [Leopardtail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leopardtail) on Ao3) for additional sensitivity reading. Also thank you to [Becassine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/becassine) and all of the Shrunkyclunks BitchesTM for providing support and the always necessary hype.


End file.
